What do you do when somebody else publishes your thesis as a book? Without your permission and without you receiving royalties? Time for us to investigate in our new podcast episode.
New HRI Podcast episode
My sabbatical allows me to focus on the HRI Podcast. Here is another episode:
The One About Ethics
Robots are not just machines. We treat them as if they were somewhat like humans, including applying moral standards and expectations to them. Our behavior towards robots matters. The way we treat them reveals much about ourselves. In today’s episode, we will talk about how being nice is not the opposite of being cruel to them. I invited Bob Douglas and Mary Blossom from the AI Research Institute to introduce us to the topic. They agreed to produce a short podcast dialogue to get us started. I then discussed their introduction with Michael-John Turp and Minyi Wang.
Swimming Markup Language (swiML)
I am currently working on the swiML project. I created a first introduction video to introduce the motivation and concepts:
New HRI Podcast episodes
Dwain Allan and I produced two more episodes in our Humanoids series:
Humanoidization: Costs, Demand, and the Future of Work
Humanoid robot companies are promising that humanoids will fast become our friends, colleagues, employees, and the backbone of our workforce. As Elon Musk described it when he first unveiled Tesla’s Optimus: “It will upend our idea of what the economy is… it will be able to do basically anything humans don’t want to do… it’s going to bring an age of abundance.”
But how close are we to this reality? What are the key costs associated with operating a humanoid? Can companies deploy them profitably? Will humanoids take our jobs, and if so, what should we be doing to prepare? To explore these questions, Dwain Allan and I interviewed Will Jackson, Jo Cribb, and Bruce McDonald.
Puffery, Bullshit and Lies
Robots and AI are being portrayed in overly optimistic videos, television shows and advertisements. Tesla’s Optimus robot is a prime example. In this episode Dwain Allan and Christoph Bartneck interview John Petrocelliand Nick Lee on how this puffery, bullshit and lies affect consumers and vulnerable people. Such as Suzanne Barron, who believes that robots are possessed by Satan.
The New Humanoids
Our new HRI Podcast episode is out. Enjoy our coverage of The New Humanoids. Here is the summary:
A new wave of humanoids entered the scene, and their creators promised us a bright future. Atlas, Figure, and Optimus are intended to work in spaces that are designed for humans. They are not only targeted at factories, but also at our homes and families. But what promises can they actually meet? Dwain Allan and I interviewed Will Jackson and Robert Riener on the future of humanoids.