A Robot that Learns to Communicate with Human Caregivers

1. A Robot that Learns to Communicate with Human Caregivers Hideki Kozima and Hiroyuki Yano

2. Introduction • Shift from intentional stance to design stance • Attribute ability to the designers not the robot. • Imagine a robot that has learned and is still learning human communicative behaviour. • social intelligence should have an ontogenetic history that is open to further development. • Infanoid developed as a proposed solution.

3. Infanoid • Any socially communicative intelligence must have a naturalistic embodiment • The robot is structurally and functionally similar to human sensori-motor systems. • The same kinematic structure of the upper body of a three-year-old human infant. • Provide Infanoid with the basic physical skills of 6-to-9-month-olds

4. Empathy • Communication enables us to predict and control other people's behaviour to some degree • Use empathy to derive intangible intentions from the physically observable behaviour of Humans • Authors state: a robot must acquire intentionality to be capable of goal-directed spontaneous behaviour.

5. Identity • To understand other people's intentions, a robot that has acquired intentionality has to identify itself with others. • Joint Attention • the act of sharing each other's attentionalfocus. • creates a shared context in front of participants • Based on Instinct and Learning. • Action capture • enables robot to indirectly experience others behaviour

6. Communication • The ability to identify with others allows one to acquire an empathetic understanding of someone else’ intention • Key to human communication • and Imitative Learning.

7. Claims • “able to predict and control our behaviour” • “cooperate or compete with in our social activities” • “Experience a linguistic and cultural environment” • “needs to understand the symbolic nature of language” • “imaginingof it self in the position of the Human, thereby understanding how they feel and act”

8. Conclusion • A lot of work to do, but an impressive start. • No detail of the learning undertaken. • Quite Vague and Hopeful • More of a demonstration of problems to be addressed in future, through a working demo.