Belinda Ward Project Manager – Humanoid Robotics • Social Robots • what’s out there, what’s coming • What they’re good at now • and not so good at • Socially assistive robotics: helping through social interaction • How can they be useful in healthcare? • Social robots - what’s “easy” • and what isn’t • Lessons for practical deployments Masayoshi Son Softbank Founder and CEO Information Revolution – Happiness for Everyone ST Solutions Australia Social robots are coming… ASIMO ROBOTHESPIAN HUBO ROMEO NINEBOT HOVIS MIIM NAO iCUB OP2 TAPIA ZENBO SANBOT AIDO But what can they do? BAXTER PR2 REEM (CHIP) JACO PIONEER MANIPULATOR TIAGO Beyond Entertainment / Novelty Socially assistive robotics Helping through social interaction, rather than physical action • Monitoring • Coaching / training • Motivation • Companionship Scenario 1: • Pepper responds to frequently asked questions • Will people in a public hospital be comfortable interacting with a robot? Scenario 2: • Pepper surveys knowledge and attitudes about the flu virus and vaccinations. • Can Pepper be effective at delivering public health information? Pepper – Skills and experience Already good at More difficult • Attracting attention • Navigation • Recognising people • Understanding environment • Tracking faces • Learning about an unknown • Understanding human environment speech* • Scripted conversation • Understanding human movement • • Movement Understanding human behaviour • Contextual (situational) conversation Skills for social robots Text to speech Question - Answer Contextual dialogue Scripted interactions Free-form dialogue Constrained speech recognition Understanding emotions Facial recognition Understanding intent One-on-one interactions Multi-party conversation Easy Hard doors stairs Moving daylight Avoiding static obstacles Building a map Semantic understanding Navigating known Updating a map environment Learning Manipulation Object recognition Grasping A word of caution Lessons from the field • Technology champion on the ground is critical • You also need champions in high places • expectation management is important • Your wifi will cause you headaches • make friends with your IT providers • IT security will be paranoid • Keep it simple and secure • Everyone will be paranoid • Their worst fears are unfounded • Privacy fears • Lessons for practical deployments.