There are many primary emotions that make us identify ourselves as humans, but many come as "secondary" and are often overlooked. Imagine you are in a bar and someone captures your attention. You look at this person and immediately they look away. Then you catch them staring at you but in a glimpse of a second they once again take their eyes away from you. Maybe it happened at work or outside, where you feel that someone clearly wants to talk to you but does not know how.
One such example is the robot presented in the video on the left. This robot (which is simply mentioned as "The Robot" or "PR2") works on a very simple premise. Using an eye-movement recognition program, it can detect when it is being stared at, or whether no one is looking at it. Its reaction to being stared at is to lower its head and look sideways at the floor.
Reminds you of someone? A friend or a colleague?
It sure does remind me of myself sometimes.
Being shy and introverted can be socially restrictive and make the person feel uncomfortable doing even the simplest task. But it's not always that way. Often, when the person has managed to gain some self esteem and they feel more sure about themselves, this feeling of shyness gets smaller, at least for a little while. And this is where my idea for this Assignment is based on.
So, the idea has two main parts. The first one has to do with the robot's feeling of shyness, and in general with being an introvert. It will continue to avoid eye contact as long as a person simply stares at it. It could even have the ability to turn its back on the person, completely move away, or do some meaningless little activity, like counting the chairs in the room (the same way shy people might just look at their phone when they feel uncomfortable). Basically, it will try to "act normal".
The second function of this robot is that it will be able to respond to a person calling its name or asking a question. Once the person initiates an interaction, while being polite and calm, the robot should start feeling less and less shy and after a couple of minutes, it should be able to normally look the person in the eyes and make a friendly conversation. Of course, all this mirrors the experience that a normal person has when interacting with an introvert.
Based on this, let's name this robot INTRA for I'm Not Talking Right Away. It's close to the word Intro, both from Introvert and because it needs an introduction in order to function. Also, it's a they/them unless its A.I. decides otherwise.