Wednesday, August 8, 2018 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
31
Oregon professor working to make robots more social
By Lillian Schrock
Corvallis Gazette-Times
CORVALLIS (AP) —
Heather Knight wants to make
robots more charismatic.
The Oregon State Univer-
sity computer science profes-
sor recently had her students
program a robot to act out a
scenario with a woman involv-
ing an apple.
“I am the keeper of the
apple,” the robot stated.
The woman asked the robot
if she could eat the apple. The
robot told her “no” and that
the apple was poisoned, but
the woman ate it anyway.
“Now I am the keeper of a
dead body,” the robot joked.
Knight, a roboticist, began
teaching at OSU last year.
She directs the CHARISMA
(Collaborative Humans and
Robots: Interaction, Sociabil-
ity, Machine Learning, and
Art) Research Lab, whose
goal is to borrow on methods
from the performing arts to
create more socially intelli-
gent robots.
“I think that to make func-
tional machines you need to
think about how to get them
to do their job but also how to
add value to that shared expe-
rience,” Knight said. “It’s kind
of like a co-worker. It’s more
fun to work with people that
you like and maybe tell you a
joke at the end of the day.”
Knight’s “full-fledged love
affair” with robotics began
during her undergraduate
studies at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology. There,
Knight worked with Cynthia
Breazeal, who is considered
the pioneer of social robotics.
In 2002, Knight created an
interactive installation called
“Public Anemone,” which was
a fiber optic sea creature that
could respond to stimuli, such
as hissing if a person got close
to it.
“I fell in love with robots
by building them, but I also
fell in love with robots by
seeing people interact with
them,” Knight said.
She bought her first robot,
which she named Data after
the “Star Trek” character, in
2010. Data was a Nao robot,
a programmable human-
oid machine developed by
Aldebaran Robotics, a French
company that has since been
acquired by SoftBank Group.
Knight liked the idea of
interactive art but the inter-
actions were too short for
humans and robots to build
relationships. That’s how she
got the idea of robots perform-
ing theater. But, since she had
only one robot, she decided to
try stand-up comedy.
“It was a happy accident
but such a great format for
robots,” Knight said. “It’s so
much more interactive with
an audience than standard
dramatic theater.”
Comedians have a set of
jokes but their performances
are also dynamic and they
adapt to their environment and
audience, she said.
“It’s a good metaphor for
what we would want from a
service robot in the future,’
Knight said.
In 2010, Knight and Data
did a Ted Talk titled “Silicon-
based comedy” in Washing-
ton, D.C. Audience members
were given red and green
cards and asked to hold up the
green card if they liked a joke
delivered by Data and the red
card if they didn’t like the one
liner. A microphone was also
listening to aggregate laughter
and applause (or booing) from
the audience. The robot used
this feedback to cater its jokes
“Netflix-style” for its listeners.
Laughter and green cards
abounded after Data’s first
joke.
“A doctor says to his
patient, ‘I have bad news and
worse news. The bad news is
that you only have 24 hours
to live,’ the robot said to the
crowd. ‘That’s terrible,’ said
the patient. ‘How can the news
possibly be worse?’ ‘I’ve been
trying to contact you since
yesterday.’”
Knight said she pro-
grammed 200 jokes into the
robot ahead of the Ted Talk.
They were labeled by topic,
appropriateness level, length
and other variables. If a joke
did well, the robot would
choose a similarly labeled joke.
To promote her robot
comedians, Knight created a
robot theater company called
Marilyn Monrobot. In 2011,
she started the Robot Film
Festival, which recently took
place in Portland. The festival
encourages positive storytell-
ing about robots and also fea-
tures live performances.
Knight went on to study
robotics at Carnegie Mellon
University, earning her doc-
toral degree in 2016.
A few years ago, Knight
replaced Data with an updated
Nao robot, which she named
Ginger for its orange head.
Knight also experiments with
other robot platforms. She
built “chairbots” by attach-
ing Neato Botvacs to IKEA
wooden chairs.
Knight and her students
once had a chairbot wait in
line at the cafe in the Kelley
Engineering Center. The bot,
which was being remote con-
trolled by students, had a sign
taped to it stating “I want a
blueberry muffin.” Also taped
to the chair was $5. The chair
received its muffin and change
and turned to leave, but the
money fell to the ground.
The cafe clerk told the chair
to wait, stopped the chair and
taped the change to the bot.
“I really like putting robots
in human spaces ... and in gen-
eral we try to collect a lot of
data,” Knight said.
Superior
Escrow
Execution
Ultimate
Service
She and her students have
also programmed a TurtleBot
they call Resolution Bot, a
play on the New Year’s resolu-
tion because it acts as a health
coach. At the beginning of the
year, the robot visited profes-
sors and students to ask how
they were feeling. The robot
would then count out exercises
for the person to do, such as
push-ups, or go on a walk with
the person. The robot also car-
ried healthy snacks to offer the
people. The robot was remote
controlled by students, who
developed ways to animate the
robot more, such as having the
robot nod when it counted out
exercises or move toward the
person if they put their hand
up for a high five.
“I like (robots) to have a
basic thing they’re trying to
do, but when you encounter
people there’s also all these
opportunities for playfulness
and character and I think that’s
really fun,” Knight said.
She said the work she does
with robots is similar to Siri,
a virtual assistant accessible
on Apple products, in that her
robots are social agents learn-
ing from people. But, she said
she’s really interested in body
language and putting robots in
proximity to humans.
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