OMG, C-3PO, what brings you to this neighborhood?

OMG, C-3PO, what brings you to this neighborhood?

Social and personal androids need to be able to learn from the humans around them

Last month I took a look at how robots from TV and movies have played a part in what we imagine them to be. But how close are real-life robots to the image portrayed on screen? How do our fine metal friends from celluloid stack up to the robots of the real world, and will similar robots be a reality in the next 10 years or so?

With so many different types of robots, we need to quickly classify them. If someone was to make a phylum/genus it would probably go something like this:

I) Robots

a. Social

i. Education

ii. Household choirs

iii. Etc.

b. Work

i. Industrial

ii. Military

iii. Etc.

c. Cyborg

i. Unknown ii. Etc.

I’m sure you’ve already poked 487 holes in my classification, and that’s okay. For the purpose of this article, this simplified version works. So let’s take a look at robots from different parts of the classifications and see how they stack up to their famous counterparts.

Social robots: C-3PO vs. Nexi

Since Star Wars was one of the first movies to leave a deep impression on me in terms of robots, I’ll start with C-3PO, a service robot in android form designed for social interaction. C-3PO is a “protocol droid,” designed to serve humans (humanoids) by assisting with the advice on the customs and translations so that interactions between different cultures run smoothly.

That’s the movie version, but what’s the reality? One of the closest androids is Nexi, a social robot being worked on at MIT. Nexi is designed with a combination of mobility, moderate dexterity, and human-centric communication and interaction abilities. This android is about the size of a three-year-old child, so it can easily maneuver with other androids in the MIT research laboratories. But even more important is Nexi’s ability to learn.

Social androids are a growing area in robotics. They will have wide application in the public sector including healthcare, education, and more. Because human life is pretty complicated, social robots in the real world need to be able to communicate in the correct context. How can they possibly do this? They need to be able to learn from the humans around them. Without robots being able to learning in a similar nature as a child, small social clues will allude these robots. We are only at the dawn of social learning in robots.

C-3PO: 30% Possibility

Next issue: Cyborgs and work robots.

Bryan DeLuca

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