5 ms·

I was a robot and this is what I learned

MrQuincle 10y ago
How could this experience be improved? The "funny" behaviour of sneaking up behind it and covering its eyes is just inexperience with the rules that come with new tech perhaps. Some of it might improve by just upping the number of telemachines on the streets. * How visual is your head? Do you see someone's head also from behind? * Do people know it's a person or do they think it's an AI? * Do people know you're a visitor or do they think you're a researcher? * It's small. Would making it bigger already help? * I say excuse me when I want to pass through. How good is the audio to convey that intent? * Do you see your surroundings good enough? People are smart in finding their way, so might see a different route you can take and don't step aside because of that. And probably a 100 other things to research and improve!
- EvilTerran 10y ago
  > I say excuse me when I want to pass through. How good is the audio to convey that intent? Perhaps a bicycle bell would help? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7oGk-ozhKI&t=26 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7oGk-ozhKI&t=26 That's a "prank" video, but I'm quite serious - it does demonstrate that people will instinctively move out of the way when they hear a bike bell. And towards the end of the video (1:38-1:47), he even uses it successfully on an escalator, and in the aisles of a grocery store - so the effect isn't limited to places where you'd expect to encounter bikes.
  - gohrt 10y ago
    Not "instinctive", but "sensible". Saying "excuse me" or "passing through" would work just as well.
    - drspacemonkey 10y ago
      Assuming the audio is good enough to use in such a fashion in a crowded conference, at least.
      - deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
forgottenpass 10y ago
To admit this, especially within the confines of the technology industry, is to show weakness. Really? It seems like every conference I go to the hottest off-subject topics of chit-chat are griping about conferences, work travel, and stress of above. Followed closely by other crowd favorites "things used to be better" and "I haven't walked more than a mile a day in months, my feet suddenly hurt!"
anonymfus 10y ago
So sad that this article has a stereotypic caricature as first illustration.
- bitwize 10y ago
  Yeah... the article itself is about the perils of meat privilege, yet the editorial staff can't even escape their own biases.
- nkrisc 10y ago
  Yeah, not all robots look like tin cans.
cr0sh 10y ago
I've experienced this as well - albeit in a slightly modified form, but one more people can relate to. I work with a friend of mine who has a non-profit to repair and donate power wheelchairs and scooters for people in need. Basically, he gets old or unused chairs (you'd be surprised at how many "new" chairs get donated - simply because the batteries died, and people can't afford new ones), and we fix them up, clean them up, then donate them back out (many times they get donated back to us when the person no longer needs the chair). Anyhow, one year we decided to go to the Abilities Expo which was being held in Los Angeles that year. As a part of this experience, we decided to take some of our chairs (including some we had customized in various ways - my friend is also an artist when it comes to metal craft - and fire art) to the expo to ride in them and "experience" what users of these chairs experience and gain that perspective, so we could apply what we learned to customizations and such. What we learned are that people are assholes (big surprise). Despite us being in chairs, at an Expo dedicated to products and companies marketing devices, materials, etc for those in need - we experienced on a constant basis people not watching out for us, stepping in our way of travel, not respecting us as human beings (like some people couldn't even look us in the eye as we talked with them - like we weren't human or something), etc. We also found the aisles between vendors to be poorly laid out for wheelchair and similar navigation. We came away from that conference with a new perspective on what power wheelchair users and other people in similar situations face - and it isn't a very nice situation to be in. Furthermore, these are real people, intelligent people - just with a different way of getting around. Unfortunately, for many able-bodied individuals, it appears that those with less ability to move around either don't exist to them, or are a nuisance in some manner - or they have some kind of fear about their situation. The experience greatly opened my eyes to something which until that time, I hadn't been aware of (iow - I was probably one of those on "the other side").
- waqf 10y ago
  I understand that people not being able to look you in the eye makes you feel extremely disrespected. But I don't think it helps anyone for you to jump from there to assuming that what's going on inside their head is "[I don't] respect [this person] as a human being". To be clear, I think other things you mention, like not getting out of your way, are evidence of that. But eye contact? Probably anxiety from an unfamiliar social situation.
yardie 10y ago
We have a Beam. We put a staff shirt on it just to humanize it a bit and it worked pretty well. From a distance you can't really tell if it's a robot or a dispenser. Our Beam is 2 pedestals with a screen and camera. Our sanitizer dispenser is 2 pedestals with a head full of sanitizer gel. If you put them next to each other you have a 50% chance someone would stick their hand under the Beam camera expecting gel to come out.
gumby 10y ago
I used a Beam to "attend" a robotics conference in San Jose (just a short drive from my house, but I wanted to try it out). A lot of people treated "me" oddly, of course, but it did work to get vendor info. It felt like a kind of gimmick until I had one amazing experience. I was talking to a sales guy from a big machine company -- he looks like he used to sell trucks or aerospace stuff. He forgot that he was talking to a screen and at one point leant forward to touch my on the "arm" (I assume he touched the vertical screen supports). We both laughed. But it was a telling moment.
Animats 10y ago
The Beam is a wimpy teleoperator. Send the new Atlas, from Boston Dynamics [1], to a conference, and you won't have that problem. People running away in terror might be more of an issue. (It's not clear what will become of Boston Dynamics. Google wants to sell them. DARPA and the Marines gave up on their BigDog as not militarily useful. The technology is impressive, but it cost well over $100 million (mostly DoD funding) and 25 years to get to this point, with no market in sight.) [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVlhMGQgDkY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVlhMGQgDkY
sickbeard 10y ago
I think it's a bit much to ask that you be treated just like being there in person when you are simply controlling a small vehicle on wheels remotely.

How could this experience be improved? The "funny" behaviour of sneaking up behind it and covering its eyes is just inexperience with the rules that come with new tech perhaps. Some of it might improve by just upping the number of telemachines on the streets. * How visual is your head? Do you see someone's head also from behind? * Do people know it's a person or do they think it's an AI? * Do people know you're a visitor or do they think you're a researcher? * It's small. Would making it bigger already help? * I say excuse me when I want to pass through. How good is the audio to convey that intent? * Do you see your surroundings good enough? People are smart in finding their way, so might see a different route you can take and don't step aside because of that. And probably a 100 other things to research and improve!

EvilTerran 10y ago
> I say excuse me when I want to pass through. How good is the audio to convey that intent? Perhaps a bicycle bell would help? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7oGk-ozhKI&t=26 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7oGk-ozhKI&t=26 That's a "prank" video, but I'm quite serious - it does demonstrate that people will instinctively move out of the way when they hear a bike bell. And towards the end of the video (1:38-1:47), he even uses it successfully on an escalator, and in the aisles of a grocery store - so the effect isn't limited to places where you'd expect to encounter bikes.
- gohrt 10y ago
  Not "instinctive", but "sensible". Saying "excuse me" or "passing through" would work just as well.
  - drspacemonkey 10y ago
    Assuming the audio is good enough to use in such a fashion in a crowded conference, at least.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]

forgottenpass 10y ago

To admit this, especially within the confines of the technology industry, is to show weakness. Really? It seems like every conference I go to the hottest off-subject topics of chit-chat are griping about conferences, work travel, and stress of above. Followed closely by other crowd favorites "things used to be better" and "I haven't walked more than a mile a day in months, my feet suddenly hurt!"

anonymfus 10y ago

So sad that this article has a stereotypic caricature as first illustration.

bitwize 10y ago
Yeah... the article itself is about the perils of meat privilege, yet the editorial staff can't even escape their own biases.
nkrisc 10y ago
Yeah, not all robots look like tin cans.

cr0sh 10y ago

I've experienced this as well - albeit in a slightly modified form, but one more people can relate to. I work with a friend of mine who has a non-profit to repair and donate power wheelchairs and scooters for people in need. Basically, he gets old or unused chairs (you'd be surprised at how many "new" chairs get donated - simply because the batteries died, and people can't afford new ones), and we fix them up, clean them up, then donate them back out (many times they get donated back to us when the person no longer needs the chair). Anyhow, one year we decided to go to the Abilities Expo which was being held in Los Angeles that year. As a part of this experience, we decided to take some of our chairs (including some we had customized in various ways - my friend is also an artist when it comes to metal craft - and fire art) to the expo to ride in them and "experience" what users of these chairs experience and gain that perspective, so we could apply what we learned to customizations and such. What we learned are that people are assholes (big surprise). Despite us being in chairs, at an Expo dedicated to products and companies marketing devices, materials, etc for those in need - we experienced on a constant basis people not watching out for us, stepping in our way of travel, not respecting us as human beings (like some people couldn't even look us in the eye as we talked with them - like we weren't human or something), etc. We also found the aisles between vendors to be poorly laid out for wheelchair and similar navigation. We came away from that conference with a new perspective on what power wheelchair users and other people in similar situations face - and it isn't a very nice situation to be in. Furthermore, these are real people, intelligent people - just with a different way of getting around. Unfortunately, for many able-bodied individuals, it appears that those with less ability to move around either don't exist to them, or are a nuisance in some manner - or they have some kind of fear about their situation. The experience greatly opened my eyes to something which until that time, I hadn't been aware of (iow - I was probably one of those on "the other side").

waqf 10y ago
I understand that people not being able to look you in the eye makes you feel extremely disrespected. But I don't think it helps anyone for you to jump from there to assuming that what's going on inside their head is "[I don't] respect [this person] as a human being". To be clear, I think other things you mention, like not getting out of your way, are evidence of that. But eye contact? Probably anxiety from an unfamiliar social situation.

yardie 10y ago

We have a Beam. We put a staff shirt on it just to humanize it a bit and it worked pretty well. From a distance you can't really tell if it's a robot or a dispenser. Our Beam is 2 pedestals with a screen and camera. Our sanitizer dispenser is 2 pedestals with a head full of sanitizer gel. If you put them next to each other you have a 50% chance someone would stick their hand under the Beam camera expecting gel to come out.

gumby 10y ago

I used a Beam to "attend" a robotics conference in San Jose (just a short drive from my house, but I wanted to try it out). A lot of people treated "me" oddly, of course, but it did work to get vendor info. It felt like a kind of gimmick until I had one amazing experience. I was talking to a sales guy from a big machine company -- he looks like he used to sell trucks or aerospace stuff. He forgot that he was talking to a screen and at one point leant forward to touch my on the "arm" (I assume he touched the vertical screen supports). We both laughed. But it was a telling moment.

Animats 10y ago

The Beam is a wimpy teleoperator. Send the new Atlas, from Boston Dynamics [1], to a conference, and you won't have that problem. People running away in terror might be more of an issue. (It's not clear what will become of Boston Dynamics. Google wants to sell them. DARPA and the Marines gave up on their BigDog as not militarily useful. The technology is impressive, but it cost well over $100 million (mostly DoD funding) and 25 years to get to this point, with no market in sight.) [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVlhMGQgDkY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVlhMGQgDkY

sickbeard 10y ago

I think it's a bit much to ask that you be treated just like being there in person when you are simply controlling a small vehicle on wheels remotely.