Artificial intelligence (AI) has already transformed our lives — from the autonomous cars on the roads to the robotic vacuums and smart thermostats in our homes. Over the next 15 years, AI technologies will continue to make inroads in nearly every area of our lives, from education to entertainment, health care to security.

The question is, are we ready? Do we have the answers to the legal and ethical quandaries that will certainly arise from the increasing integration of AI into our daily lives? Are we even asking the right questions?

Now, a panel of academics and industry thinkers has looked ahead to 2030 to forecast how advances in AI might affect life in a typical North American city and spark discussion about how to ensure the safe, fair, and beneficial development of these rapidly developing technologies.

“Artificial Intelligence and Life in 2030” is the first product of the One Hundred Year Study on Artificial Intelligence (AI100), an ongoing project hosted by Stanford University to inform debate and provide guidance on the ethical development of smart software, sensors, and machines. Every five years for the next 100 years, the AI100 project will release a report that evaluates the status of AI technologies and their potential impact on the world.

Credit: CB Insights

Barbara Grosz, Higgins Professor of Natural Sciences at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, chairs the AI100 Standing Committee.

“Now is the time to consider the design, ethical, and policy challenges that AI technologies raise,” said Grosz. “If we tackle these issues now and take them seriously, we will have systems that are better designed in the future and more appropriate policies to guide their use.”

“We believe specialized AI applications will become both increasingly common and more useful by 2030, improving our economy and quality of life,” said Peter Stone, a computer scientist at the University of Texas, Austin, and chair of the report. “But this technology will also create profound challenges, affecting jobs and incomes and other issues that we should begin addressing now to ensure that the benefits of AI are broadly shared.”

The report investigates eight areas of human activity in which AI technologies are already affecting urban life and will be even more pervasive by 2030: transportation, home/service robots, health care, education, entertainment, low-resource communities, public safety and security, employment, and the workplace.

Some of the biggest challenges in the next 15 years will be creating safe and reliable hardware for autonomous cars and health care robots; gaining public trust for AI systems, especially in low-resource communities; and overcoming fears that the technology will marginalize humans in the workplace.

Issues of liability and accountability also arise with questions such as: Who is responsible when a self-driven car crashes or an intelligent medical device fails? How can we prevent AI applications from being used for racial discrimination or financial cheating?

The report doesn’t offer solutions but rather is intended to start a conversation between scientists, ethicists, policymakers, industry leaders, and the general public.

Grosz said she hopes the AI 100 report “initiates a century-long conversation about ways AI-enhanced technologies might be shaped to improve life and societies.

This article is published in collaboration with Harvard Gazette and World Economic Forum.

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See all the latest robotics news on Robohub, or sign up for our weekly newsletter.

The octobot is powered by a chemical reaction and controlled with a soft logic board. A reaction inside the bot transforms a small amount of liquid fuel (hydrogen peroxide) into a large amount of gas, which flows into the octobot’s arms and inflates them like a balloon. A microfluidic logic circuit, a soft analog of a simple electronic oscillator, controls when hydrogen peroxide decomposes to gas in the octobot. Image credit: Lori Sanders/HarvardSEAS

By: Leah Burrows

A team of Harvard University researchers with expertise in 3D printing, mechanical engineering, and microfluidics has demonstrated the first autonomous, untethered, entirely soft robot. This small, 3D-printed robot — nicknamed the octobot — could pave the way for a new generation of completely soft, autonomous machines.

Soft robotics could revolutionize how humans interact with machines. But researchers have struggled to build entirely compliant robots. Electric power and control systems — such as batteries and circuit boards — are rigid and until now soft-bodied robots have been either tethered to an off-board system or rigged with hard components.

Robert Wood, the Charles River Professor of Engineering and Applied Sciences and Jennifer A. Lewis, the Hansjorg Wyss Professor of Biologically Inspired Engineering at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) led the research. Lewis and Wood are also core faculty members of the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University.

“One long-standing vision for the field of soft robotics has been to create robots that are entirely soft, but the struggle has always been in replacing rigid components like batteries and electronic controls with analogous soft systems and then putting it all together,” said Wood. “This research demonstrates that we can easily manufacture the key components of a simple, entirely soft robot, which lays the foundation for more complex designs.”

The research is described in the journal Nature.

“Through our hybrid assembly approach, we were able to 3D print each of the functional components required within the soft robot body, including the fuel storage, power and actuation, in a rapid manner,” said Lewis. “The octobot is a simple embodiment designed to demonstrate our integrated design and additive fabrication strategy for embedding autonomous functionality.”

Octopuses have long been a source of inspiration in soft robotics. These curious creatures can perform incredible feats of strength and dexterity with no internal skeleton.

Harvard’s octobot is pneumatic-based — powered by gas under pressure.  A reaction inside the bot transforms a small amount of liquid fuel (hydrogen peroxide) into a large amount of gas, which flows into the octobot’s arms and inflates them like a balloon.

“Fuel sources for soft robots have always relied on some type of rigid components,” said Michael Wehner, a postdoctoral fellow in the Wood lab and co-first author of the paper. “The wonderful thing about hydrogen peroxide is that a simple reaction between the chemical and a catalyst — in this case platinum — allows us to replace rigid power sources.”

To control the reaction, the team used a microfluidic logic circuit based on pioneering work by co-author and chemist George Whitesides, the Woodford L. and Ann A. Flowers University Professor and core faculty member of the Wyss. The circuit, a soft analog of a simple electronic oscillator, controls when hydrogen peroxide decomposes to gas in the octobot.

The octobot, here with fluorescently dyed fugitive inks (red) and hyperelastic actuator layers (blue), is fabricated by moulding and 3D printing. Image courtesy: Lori Sanders/Harvard SEAS

“The entire system is simple to fabricate, by combining three fabrication methods — soft lithography, molding and 3D printing — we can quickly manufacture these devices,” said Ryan Truby, a graduate student in the Lewis lab and co-first author of the paper.

The simplicity of the assembly process paves the way for more complex designs. Next, the Harvard team hopes to design an octobot that can crawl, swim and interact with its environment.

“This research is a proof of concept,” Truby said. “We hope that our approach for creating autonomous soft robots inspires roboticists, material scientists and researchers focused on advanced manufacturing,”

The paper was co-authored by Daniel Fitzgerald of the Wyss Institute and Bobak  Mosadegh, of Cornell University.  The research was supported by the National Science Foundation through the Materials Research Science and Engineering Center at Harvard and by the Wyss Institute.

Visit the new Harvard Robotics website to learn more about robotics at Harvard.

Research reference:

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v536/n7617/full/nature19100.html

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Serena Booth and her robot, Gaia, in its cookie-delivery disguise. (Photo by Adam Zewe/SEAS Communications.)

By Adam Zewe

Hollywood is to be believed, there are two kinds of robots, the friendly and helpful BB-8s, and the sinister and deadly T-1000s. Few would suggest that “Star Wars: the Force Awakens” or “Terminator 2: Judgment Day” are scientifically accurate, but the two popular films beg the question, “Do humans place too much trust in robots?”

The answer to that question is as complex and multifaceted as robots themselves, according to the work of Harvard senior Serena Booth, a computer science concentrator at the John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. For her senior thesis project, she examined the concept of over-trusting robotic systems by conducting a human-robot interaction study on the Harvard campus. Booth, who was advised by Radhika Nagpal, Fred Kavli Professor of Computer Science, received the Hoopes Prize, a prestigious annual award presented to Harvard College undergraduates for outstanding scholarly research.

During her month-long study, Booth placed a wheeled robot outside several Harvard residence houses. While she controlled the machine remotely and watched its interactions unfold through a camera, the robot approached individuals and groups of students and asked to be let into the keycard-access dorm buildings.

Booth’s robot, Gaia, waits outside the entrance to Quincy House. (Image courtesy of Serena Booth.)

When the robot approached lone individuals, they helped it enter the building in 19 percent of trials. When Booth placed the robot inside the building, and it approached individuals asking to be let outside, they complied with its request 40 percent of the time. Her results indicate that people may feel safety in numbers when interacting with robots, since the machine gained access to the building in 71 percent of cases when it approached groups.

“People were a little bit more likely to let the robot outside than inside, but it wasn’t statistically significant,” Booth said. “That was interesting, because I thought people would perceive the robot as a security threat.”

In fact, only one of the 108 study participants stopped to ask the robot if it had card access to the building.

But the human-robot interactions took on a decidedly friendlier character when Booth disguised the robot as a cookie-delivering agent of a fictional startup, “RobotGrub.” When approached by the cookie-delivery robot, individuals let it into the building 76 percent of the time.

“Everyone loved the robot when it was delivering cookies,” she said.

The cookie delivery robot successfully gained entrance into the residence hall. (Image courtesy of Serena Booth.)

Whether they were enamored with the knee-high robot or terrified of it, people displayed a wide range of reactions during Booth’s 72 experimental trials. One individual, startled when the robot spoke, ran away and called security, while another gave the robot a wide berth, ignored its request, and entered the building through a different door.

Booth had thought individuals who perceived the robot to be dangerous wouldn’t let it inside, but after conducting follow-up interviews, she found that those who felt threatened by the robot were just as likely to help it enter the building.

“Another interesting result was that a lot of people stopped to take pictures of the robot,” she said. “In fact, in the follow-up interviews, one of the participants admitted that the reason she let it inside the building was for the Snapchat video.”

While Booth’s robot was harmless, she is troubled that only one person stopped to consider whether the machine was authorized to enter the dormitory. If the robot had been dangerous—a robotic bomb, for example—the effects of helping it enter the building could have been disastrous, she said.

A self-described robot enthusiast, Booth is excited about the many different ways robots could potentially benefit society, but she cautions that people must be careful not to put blind faith in the motivations and abilities of the machines.

“I’m worried that the results of this study indicate that we trust robots too much,” she said. “We are putting ourselves in a position where, as we allow robots to become more integrated into society, we could be setting ourselves up for some really bad outcomes.”

Entrants in the Soft Robotics Competitions use the intellectual resources provided in the Soft Robotics Toolkit to design and build their own soft robots. (Photo by Eliza Grinnell/SEAS Communications.)

By Adam Zewe | SEAS

If you have a soft spot for robotics, this competition is right up your alley. With separate tracks for academic researchers, college students, and high school students, the 2016 Soft Robotics Competition offers anyone with an interest in robotics the chance to design and build their own soft robot using the resources available in the open-source Soft Robotics Toolkit.

Now in its second year, the competition was developed by Conor Walsh, assistant professor of mechanical and biomedical engineering at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, and Dónal Holland, visiting lecturer in engineering sciences, as a way to encourage individuals to take advantage of the resources provided in the Soft Robotics Toolkit.

Further reading:

 

Robots Podcast #180: Soft Robotics Toolkit, with Donal Holland

Interview with Soft Robotics’ Carl Vause

The real soft robots that inspired Baymax, with Chris Atkeson

Morphological computation: The hidden superpower of soft-bodied robots

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The toolkit, which incorporates contributions from researchers from Harvard and other institutions, provides a set of intellectual tools that one can use to design and construct a robot using soft, flexible materials. It includes resources such as step-by-step instructions on building actuators and sensors, lists of suggested materials, and how-to fabrication videos.

The ultimate goal of the competition is to encourage others to find innovative applications for soft robotics technology and continue expanding interest in this relatively new field.

“Last year, we were really impressed with the variety and quality of entries,” Holland said. “The participants came up with fantastic ideas that we never would have thought of, and we hope that this year we will receive even more submissions.”

The inaugural contest, which drew 87 initial entries from around the world, has been expanded to include separate categories for academic researchers, college students, and high school students.

Last year, some of the most unique entries were submitted by high school students, such as a wearable glove that detects and controls tremor, and a teddy bear that hugs back. Since many high school students don’t have access to 3D printers and other high-tech equipment commonly found on university campuses, organizers established a separate high school category this year, explained research fellow Max Herman.

“We hope this will enable even more people to participate this year,” he said. “Our goal is to lower the barrier of entry into the area of soft robotics.”

Entries in the high school and college competitions must be novel and should incorporate at least one component technology from the Soft Robotics Toolkit website. Students will document their projects using a “wiki” that includes at least four sections: background, design, fabrication, and testing.

Entrants in the academic research competition must submit work that has either been published or accepted for publication in a peer-reviewed journal or conference proceeding. In addition, entrants must provide details of the research on the Soft Robotics Toolkit website before June, with a focus on replicable processes. The quality of the documentation will be a factor in the judging process.

The competition opens in January and entries will be accepted through June. There is no cost to enter the competition and prizes will be awarded to the developers of the top projects in all three categories. Winning projects will also be featured on the Soft Robotics Toolkit website.

Click here for detailed information about competition rules, eligibility, and entry guidelines.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbLF_gp9RkI

3D printing is revolutionizing the way objects are created, from plastic toys to ceramic dental crowns. But the seemingly boundless possibilities of 3D printing technology have one major limitation—the printers themselves, which are large, bulky, and stationary.

Robert Flitsch didn’t like being constrained by the boxy shape of the 3D printer he used while he was a student at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. So this mechanical engineering concentrator developed a wheeled additive manufacturing machine that can literally run (or drive) circles around a traditional 3D printer. He recently launched a startup named Addibots (a portmanteau of additive manufacturing and robots), to develop and market his mobile 3D printing robots.

“By making the additive manufacturing components completely mobile, you break free of all the workspace limitations of 3D printing,” Flitsch said. “But Addibots also greatly opens the field to many new application spaces for additive manufacturing.”

An Addibot^TM is a mobile robot, either remote-controlled or autonomous, that holds an array of additive manufacturing printheads on its undercarriage. These high-resolution printheads enable the robot to 3D-print using different materials as it drives along a surface.

Ice was the surface Flitsch had in mind when he initially developed the concept. A lifelong hockey player, he conceived the additive manufacturing robot as an efficient tool to resurface an ice rink that has been chipped up by skates. For his senior project in Engineering Sciences 100, he built a prototype of an additive manufacturing robot that was able to extrude ice onto the surface of an uneven skating rink.

“I soon realized that the best thing about this technology is that it is really only limited by what you can think up,” he said.

After brainstorming other applications for Addibots, Flitsch decided to focus on road resurfacing.

He is currently prototyping an Addibot that would be able to move along a road at a constant speed, using a specialized injector array to resurface the road with a combination of different materials. The machine’s ability to streamline resurfacing work could help public works departments across the nation meet the massive demand for new and better roads.

He doesn’t see Addibots as a replacement for human workers, but rather as a way to improve roadwork and enable municipalities to perform routine maintenance, rather than spending additional time and tax dollars reactively filling potholes.

“Road resurfacing Addibots would also be a great way to move caustic materials, like tar, farther away from the people who would be working on the roads,” Flitsch said.

By incorporating different printheads into the injector array, the Addibot could easily augment resurfacing material with specialized elements, such as carbon nanotubes, which would improve road durability, Flitsch said. Eventually, the technology could even “print” sensors into the road surface that would be used by traveling autonomous vehicles.

Flitsch, who is currently seeking funding sources to advance his prototyping efforts, is hoping to bring an Addibot to market within one to three years. And he is considering other applications for mobile additive manufacturing robots.

“Once you get rid of that confined workspace and you make the world your workspace, there is no telling what you can do,” he said.