1. HRI A3 - Bekey

2. Definition of HRI Question number 1: Definition of HRI.
Terry Fong provided a definition developed at NASA that the group agreed with:
“HRI is the discipline that regards the methods and interfaces needed for coordination, teaming, direct and indirect commanding and information sharing between humans and robots. HRI is strongly related to human-computer interaction (HCI), but differs because robots have complex, dynamic control systems, exhibit cognition and autonomy, and operate in changing, real-world environments.”
We discussed the difference between HRI and interaction with agents. The group agreed that a room in a smart house could be a robot; it senses, thinks, and acts and there is a physical manifestation of the robot.

3. Scope of Research in HRI
Question number 2: Scope of research in HRI.
We started out with a few specific examples.
--Physical engagement with robot, particularly with non-anthropomorphic robots, either through haptics or direct manipulation or teleoperation, to try to make more seamless physical contact between people and robots. Can we build robots that operate safely in crowds of people?
--Robot observation of people that leads to it learning what a person is doing and what he/she needs and thus goes off and does something helpful for the person.
Interesting discussion point: is it HRI if the operator is performing very low-level tele-operation? Consensus is: yes, if the object being controlled senses, thinks, and acts.
We summarized by saying:
All the aspects concerned with control, observation, and interaction with robots. This is intentionally broad.

4. Emerging and Important Areas of Research
Question number 3: Emerging and important areas of research:
Perception:
Perception on the part of the robot of the human in a human-robot team.
Also, perception of humans of what robots are doing.
Mutual perception of what is happening in human-robot teams. Context awareness may play into this.
Roles:
How do the humans and robots negotiate their roles? Or simply clarify their roles with respect to one another.
Affect:
Having the robot understand the person’s emotional state so it can change its behavior based on the person’s emotions.
Mutually accommodating behavior, to take into account societal differences.
The group was not clear whether we should aim research towards making robots think like humans. But “thinking like humans” is very culturally driven, so is different on a culture-by-culture basis.
Metrics:
How do we know whether we’re doing HRI well?
Perhaps we need a Turing test for HRI. Rather than taking metrics from other disciplines playing into HRI, perhaps we should be thinking of new metrics. Mean time to interaction (akin to fan-out)? Whether the robot is used, and how much?
Ethical and psychological consideration:
How do we get safe interactions between humans and robots, defined as no harm coming to either.
Incorporating ethics in HRI.

5. Other Questions Question number 4: other questions:
Is it important to have standards for HRI? Perhaps it is too early for standards because they might inhibit research at this stage.
How do we see robots actually getting into daily life and moving into society, including having them be economically successful? What constitutes social acceptance for robots? Perhaps by taking everyday objects currently in use and making them more robotic, such as adding automation to cars? But fundamentally, the research area would be, how to encourage social acceptance?