Invited Speakers

Speaker-Bio: Since August 2018 Kerstin Dautenhahn has been Canada 150 Research Chair in Intelligent Robotics at University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada. She has a joint appointment with the Departments of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Systems Design Engineering and is cross-appointed with the David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science at University of Waterloo. She is Visiting Professor at the University of Hertfordshire, UK. In Waterloo she is director of Social and Intelligent Robotics Research Laboratory (SIRRL). The main areas of her research are Human-Robot Interaction, Social Robotics, Assistive Technology and Artificial Life. Prof. Dautenhahn is on the Advisory Board of the journal AI and Society (Springer). She is a IEEE Fellow, member of ACM, and a Lifelong Fellow of AISB, as well as a member of the Executive Board of the International Foundation for Responsible Robotics. Since 2006 she has been part of the Standing Steering Committee of the IEEE conference RO-MAN (Human and Robot Interactive Communication).

Abstract:

The talk will discuss some issues that arise in research on companion robots, i.e. social robots that are meant to provide assistance in a socially acceptance manner, e.g. in home, care or therapy scenarios. I will present some research regarding care home settings, which raises some issues that question whether what we, as researchers, consider "ethical" is necessarily in agreement with the view of end users in the field. I will also discuss lessons learnt on the acceptance of therapy robots as part of a long-term (one year+) deployment in a school for children with special needs. Finally, I will summarise some ongoing research in the Social and Intelligent Research Lab at University in Waterloo, and implications for trust, ethics and acceptance.

Speaker-Bio: Tony Prescott is a Professor of Cognitive Robotics at the University of Sheffield and Director of Sheffield Robotics an inter-disciplinary research institute across both Universities in Sheffield. His main interests are within the areas of cognitive neuroscience, artificial intelligence and bio-inspired robotics. A particular focus is on the investigation of biomimetic and biohybrid systems: an example of the former would be an animal-like or humanoid robot, of the latter a human-machine interface. He maintains profiles on ResearchGate and Linkedin, and a Youtube Channel with links to online interviews, talks and movies about our robots and research.

In addition to his output He authored a number of shorter pieces of general interest, about artificial intelligence and robotics, for the online magazine The Conversation.

Abstract:

This talk will contend that what matters in human-robot interaction, has less to do with the essential natures of the human and robot actors involved, and more to do with the patterns and consequences of the interaction, including its meaning and significance to the people involved, and its wider impact on their social and relationship context. Building on this relational (or transactional) view (Prescott and Robillard, 2021, iScience), I will develop some proposals for design principles for social robots and compare/contrast these with the view of transparency that robots should behave so as to reveal their machine nature.

Speaker-Bio : Pericle Salvini is a research associate at the University of Oxford. He was post-doc fellow working at the ARTS Lab of Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, Pisa. He graduated in Foreign Languages and Literatures in 2000 at the University of Pisa (Italy). He got a Master of Research degree in Theatre Studies from the University of Lancaster (UK) in 2005. Finally he received his PhD in Biorobotics Science and Engineering from IMT Lucca Institute for Advanced Studies (Lucca, Italy) and Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, in 2008. His main research interests are in the field of human-robot interaction, in particular: social robotics, legal and safety regulations, roboethics, educational robotics, robotic and telepresence art.

Abstract:

In this presentation, I will talk about safety and event data recorders (aka black boxes). Although safety is regulated by many standards and laws, it is a core ethical value. It concerns the moral imperative not to cause harm. Drawing on ISO13482:2014, which is the reference standard for personal care robots, I will highlight some critical issues relating to physical and psychological safety in human-robot interaction. Event data recorders can help to tackle liability issues, by allowing the reconstruction of the causes leading up to an accident/incident. I will present some of the research questions related to the design and development of black boxes that we are currently investigating at the Responsible Technology Institute of Oxford University.