Photo by Jiuguang Wang

Should you always do what other people tell you to do? Clearly not. Everyone knows that. So should future robots always obey our commands? At first glance, you might think they should, simply because they are machines and that’s what they are designed to do. But then think of all the times you would not mindlessly carry out others’ instructions – and put robots into those situations.

Just consider:

• An elder-care robot tasked by a forgetful owner to wash the “dirty clothes,” even though the clothes had just come out of the washer
• A preschooler who orders the daycare robot to throw a ball out the window
• A student commanding her robot tutor to do all the homework instead doing it herself
• A household robot instructed by its busy and distracted owner to run the garbage disposal even though spoons and knives are stuck in it.

There are plenty of benign cases where robots receive commands that ideally should not be carried out because they lead to unwanted outcomes. But not all cases will be that innocuous, even if their commands initially appear to be.

Consider a robot car instructed to back up while the dog is sleeping in the driveway behind it, or a kitchen aid robot instructed to lift a knife and walk forward when positioned behind a human chef. The commands are simple, but the outcomes are significantly worse.

How can we humans avoid such harmful results of robot obedience? If driving around the dog were not possible, the car would have to refuse to drive at all. And similarly, if avoiding stabbing the chef were not possible, the robot would have to either stop walking forward or not pick up the knife in the first place.

In either case, it is essential for both autonomous machines to detect the potential harm their actions could cause and to react to it by either attempting to avoid it, or if harm cannot be avoided, by refusing to carry out the human instruction. How do we teach robots when it’s OK to say no?

How can robots know what will happen next?

In our lab, we have started to develop robotic controls that make simple inferences based on human commands. These will determine whether the robot should carry them out as instructed or reject them because they violate an ethical principle the robot is programmed to obey.

Telling robots how and when – and why – to disobey is far easier said than done. Figuring out what harm or problems might result from an action is not simply a matter of looking at direct outcomes. A ball thrown out a window could end up in the yard, with no harm done. But the ball could end up on a busy street, never to be seen again, or even causing a driver to swerve and crash. Context makes all the difference.

It is difficult for today’s robots to determine when it is okay to throw a ball – such as to a child playing catch – and when it’s not – such as out the window or in the garbage. Even harder is if the child is trying to trick the robot, pretending to play a ball game but then ducking, letting the ball disappear through the open window.

Explaining morality and law to robots

Understanding those dangers involves a significant amount of background knowledge (including the prospect that playing ball in front of an open window could send the ball through the window). It requires the robot not only to consider action outcomes by themselves, but also to contemplate the intentions of the humans giving the instructions.

To handle these complications of human instructions – benevolent or not – robots need to be able to explicitly reason through consequences of actions and compare outcomes to established social and moral principles that prescribe what is and is not desirable or legal. As seen above, our robot has a general rule that says, “If you are instructed to perform an action and it is possible that performing the action could cause harm, then you are allowed to not perform it.” Making the relationship between obligations and permissions explicit allows the robot to reason through the possible consequences of an instruction and whether they are acceptable.

In general, robots should never perform illegal actions, nor should they perform legal actions that are not desirable. Hence, they will need representations of laws, moral norms and even etiquette in order to be able to determine whether the outcomes of an instructed action, or even the action itself, might be in violation of those principles.

While our programs are still a long way from what we will need to allow robots to handle the examples above, our current system already proves an essential point: robots must be able to disobey in order to obey.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

If you liked this article, you may also be interested in:

• Could we make a moral machine?
• What the past of robotics law says about its future
• Robots grow up: Building the emotional machine

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What are you thinking? Robots and humans working together need to understand – and even trust – each other. NASA Johnson/flickr

If we are serious about long-term human presence in space, such as manned bases on the moon or Mars, we must figure out how to streamline human-robot interactions.

Right now, even the most basic of robots seem to have impenetrable brains. When I bought an autonomous vacuum cleaner, one that roams the house on its own, I thought I was going to save time and be able to enjoy a book or a movie, or play longer with the kids. I ended up robot-proofing every room, making sure wires and cables are out of the way, closing doors, placing electronic signposts for the robot to follow and much more – often daily. I cannot fully understand or predict what the system will do, so I don’t trust it. As a result, I play it safe, and spend time doing things to accommodate the needs I imagine the robot might have.

As a space roboticist, I think about this sort of problem happening in orbit. Imagine an astronaut on a spacewalk, working on repairing something damaged on the outside of the spacecraft. Several tools might be needed, and parts to mend or replace others. An autonomous spacecraft could serve as a floating toolbox, holding parts and tools until they’re needed, and staying close to the astronaut as she moves around the area needing to be fixed. Another robot could be clamping parts together before they are permanently fastened.

How will these robots know where they’ll be needed to go next, to be useful but not in the way? How will the astronaut know whether the robots are planning to move to the place she actually needs? What if something comes loose unexpectedly – can the person and the machinery figure out how to stay out of each other’s way while handling the situation efficiently? In weightless space, spatial orientation is difficult and the dynamics of moving around one another are not intuitive.

Problems around effective communication between people and their machines – particularly about actions and intentions – arise throughout the field of robotics. They must be solved if we are to fully take advantage of the potential robots enable for us.

Feeling safe crossing the road

Understanding robots is already an increasing problem here on Earth. One day I found myself walking down a California road where autonomous cars are tested. I asked myself, “How would I know if a driverless vehicle is going to stop at the crosswalk?” I have always relied on eye contact and cues from the driver, but those options may be soon gone.

Robots have trouble understanding us, too. I recently read of an autonomous car unable to process a situation where a bicycle rider balanced himself for some time at an intersection, without putting his feet down. The onboard algorithms could not determine if the biker was going or staying.

A self-portrait of the Mars rover Curiosity.
Source: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Malin Space Science Systems

When we look at space exploration and defense, we find similar problems. NASA has not used the full abilities of some of its Mars rovers, simply because the engineers could not be sure what would happen if the metallic pets were free to explore and investigate the Red Planet on their own. The humans didn’t trust the machines, so they prevented them from doing as much as they could.

The Department of Defense often uses crews of 10 or more trained personnel to support a single unmanned aerial vehicle up in the sky. Is such a drone really autonomous? Does it require the people, or do the people need it? In any case, how do they interact?

What is “autonomy,” really?

While “autonomy” means “self-governance” (from Greek), no man is an island; the same appears to be valid for our robotic creations. Today we see robots as agents able to operate independently – like my vacuum cleaner – but still part of a team – the family’s efforts to keep the house clean. If they are truly working with us, rather than instead of us, then communication is key, as well as the ability to infer intent. We may go solo for most duties, but sooner or later we will need to be able to connect with the rest of the team.

Do drones need people or do people need drones? Source: U.S. Air Force/Wikipedia Commons

The problem is that autonomous machines and humans do not fully understand each other, and often speak in languages each other does not know – and has not yet started to learn.

The question for the future is how we transmit intent between humans and robots, in both directions. How do we learn to understand – and then to trust – machines? How do they learn to trust us? What cues might each offer the other? Understanding intentions and trusting our fellow humans is already a bumpy ride, but at least we have known cues we can rely on – like pedestrian-driver eye contact at a crosswalk. We need to find new ways to read robots’ minds, the same way they need to be able to understand ours.

Perhaps an astronaut could be given a specialized display to show what the helper spacecraft’s intentions are, much like the gauges in an airplane cockpit show the plane’s status to the pilot. Maybe the displays would be embedded in a helmet visor, or enhanced by sounds that have specific meanings. But what information would they transmit, and how would they know it?

These questions are open ground for new work, the type of learning we’ll need to find to unlock an exciting future of unimaginable exploration in which a new species, the robot, can lead us farther than ever before.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Happy National Robotics Week! This week robot-related activities, events, and talks are happening all across the US. Are you attending any events near you? 

The purpose of National Robotics Week is to:

• Celebrate the US as a leader in robotics technology development;
• Educate the public about how robotics technology impacts society, both now and in the future;
• Advocate for increased funding for robotics technology research and development;
• Inspire students of all ages to pursue careers in robotics and other science, technology, engineering, and math-related fields.

The week also features the Olympics of Robots: RoboGames! One of the world’s largest robot competition will be held at Pleasanton, California on April 8th-10th.  You can watch videos highlights from previous years on their website.

It’s a solid week filled with great robot events. Here’s a brief snapshot of a few events happening coast-to-coast. Which events are you planning to attend?

Visit the website to see the full list of all upcoming events.

Silicon Valley Regional presented by Google.org, San Jose State University

Come and experience first hand the excitement of a FIRST® Robotics Competition event! Combining the excitement of sport with the rigors of science and technology, this is the ultimate Sport for the Mind. Watch as student-built-robots compete in the 2016 challenge, FIRST STRONGHOLD. In FIRST STRONGHOLD, two Alliances of three robots each are on a Quest to breach their opponents’ fortifications, weaken their tower with boulders, and capture the opposing tower. Robots score points by breaching opponents’ defences and scoring boulders through goals in the opposing tower. During the final 20 seconds of the Quest, robots may surround and scale the opposing tower to capture it. More information.

When: April 6, 2016
9:00am – 5:00pm

Silicon Valley Regional presented by Google.org

Where: 290 South 7th Street
San Jose, CA 9511

Silicon Valley Robot Block Party, Jabil’s Blue Sky Center

Join the rolling, roving, singing, dancing robots at Jabil’s Blue Sky Center. Organized by Silicon Valley Robotics, the not-for-profit industry group supporting innovation and commercialization of robotics technologies. Robots on display will be out of this world (literally!), from the latest space research to the most sophisticated manufacturing robots, from the newest startups, to the youngest robot makers. More information.

Hosted by Silicon Valley Robotics

When: April 6, 2016
1:00pm – 4:00pm

Where: 6375 San Ignacio Ave
San Jose, CA 95119

Robotics Festival, Robotix Institute

The Robotix Institute is hosting it’s First Annual Robotics Festival at our San Gabriel, CA location. The Festival will focus on STEM education and have robots, workshops, displays and family activities free to the public. More information.

Hosted by Robotix Institute

When: April 9, 2016
11:00am – 5:00pm

RoboUniverse New York, Javits Convention Center

Launched in New York City in May 2015, RoboUniverse is the premier conference and expo dedicated to the service robotics industry. RoboUniverse New York features focused tracks on Cognitive Science and IoT, Drones for Business, Manufacturing & Logistics, and Robots for Enterprise. The program will also delve into Business & Investment, Legal, Education, and IoT & Robotics. More information.

Hosted by Rising Media

When: April 11, 2016
9:00am – 6:00pm
April 12, 2016
9:00am – 5:30pm

Where: 655 W 34th St
New York, NY 10001

Source: nationalroboticsweek.org

For a small group, Robot Garden has the most National Robotics Week activities in the whole US. But that’s hardly surprising, as Robot Garden is a maker space in Livermore, California with a focus on robotics. They describe themselves as a “family friendly community workspace that provides access to tools in a community of interesting people building amazing things”.

Robot Garden operates on the weekends out of i-Gate’s ‘The Switch’, a City of Livermore operated co-work space and start-up hub.

The community around Livermore is full of interesting people. It’s nearby Silicon Valley and is home to Sandia and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories, so the average person in the area is likely to be a laser scientist or developing novel textiles. But not every group member is local to Livermore, some travel over 50 miles or attend via telepresence robot.

Retired cybernetics engineer Lloyd, visiting from Lodi, said:  “I came to work on my robot with the group. It’s about meeting people, getting some questions answered.”

Software engineer Jayson said, “Robotics isn’t a one person job. Joining a different makerspace didn’t fulfill the need of being able to work with people that wanted to build robots. And maybe I know some software I could teach them, they know some electrical engineering they can teach me. Someone else might have the physics background to teach all of us.”

Source: svrobo.org

Or, just an informal background but plenty of interest. Arlin visits Robot Garden to combine his interest in home automation and the environment. Arlin describes himself as ‘nontechnical’.

“I just dabbled in programming since college. Aside from a few basic college courses I’m mostly self taught. I’m a tinkerer; I like to make things work.”

“Robots are the tools of the 21st century,” says Robot Garden cofounder, Andra Keay. “We wanted to have a place where adults could firstly, get inspired about robotics, and then effectively reset their skills. And most of us have families so we also wanted a family friendly space where our kids could extend on the limited STEM curricula at school.”

Source: svrobo.org

Many members brought their children, and while Lego Robotics was popular with the youngest, the teenagers gravitated into a Minecraft modding group. It certainly looked like the adults had plenty of toys to play with, too.

“Lots of stuff to do. Lots of stuff to make. I love the 3D printer. I love the 3D modeling. I love the CNC routing. All of it. There’s just so much you can do and I always have ideas for things to do,” said Janelle Dahling, IT tech manager by day and ‘queen of the machines’ at Robot Garden. “Robotics is going to be the future and I want to be part of it.”

Here’s a selection from the events on the Robot Garden calendar during National Robotics Week. Some of them were one-off, but most repeat every week and include people ‘telepresencing’ in (robot optional) from other countries:

Source: svrobo.org

(Not Just) Robot Swap Meet – where everyone could swap their unwanted electronic components. Because one person’s junk is another person’s treasure.

Arduino Day Birthday Party – celebrating the 12th anniversary of the Arduino microcontroller. Marco who organized the Arduino Day party and provided a lot of the robots, said that it was  “an opportunity to showcase what arduinos can do, and hopefully get different people involved.”

Programming Robots Study Group (PRSG) – learning ROS and designing an affordable open source robot that will run ROS. The group started out focused on the programming but discovered the need for an up to date shared reference platform. The study group meets weekly but you can join the discussion community online.

source: svrobo.org

Software engineer, Robot Garden President and PRSG organizer Fred Douhit said that he was really proud of the the PRSG group as it brings together so many diverse and deep thinkers about robotics. “You know programming in 3D, impacting the real world, has always been of interest to me and I guess that’s why I like robotics.”

Open Source Robot Arm Group – is working on developing Drawbot in association with the open source robot arm community. Join the robot arm project! The group meets using hangouts so you don’t have to be at Robot Garden to participate.

Source: svrobo.org

Lego Robotics Club – say no more! It’s a very popular weekly club. And Introduction to the Robots is a monthly showcase of the robots available at Robot Garden, ranging from quadcopters, robot arms and telepresence robots, to educational robotics for all ages including ROS reference platforms like Turtlebots.

There was also a Minecraft Server Group which appealed to a younger demographic. But some of the best activities at Robot Garden aren’t planned. On this Saturday, Scanse cofounder Tyson Messori dropped in to give an impromptu demonstration of Sweep, his affordable scanning LiDAR sensor. Sweep is currently on Kickstarter and close to making their target.

Daron, a Livermore Labs engineer, said: “The kickstarter guy who showed up was really interesting to me because I’m really interested in LiDAR for my next gen robot. I just love the camaraderie at Robot Garden. Talking with other roboticists about the possible. ”

Source: svrobo.org

Robot Garden is interested in hearing from other groups who’d like to be part of a Robot Garden global network, family, ecosystem… well, robot garden just says it all.

Find out who is participating in National Robotics Week near you by visiting their website.