217: Robots As "Social Entities" with Laura Major

Greater Than Code

02:05 - Laura’s Superpower: Problem Solving

04:07 - What to Expect When You’re Expecting Robots

• Check out our interview with Laura’s coauthor: Greater Than Code Episode 216: Robot and Human Collaboration with Julie Shah
• Where is human collaboration with robots heading?

06:59 - The Human/Robot Partnership

• Robot Personification
• Positives and Negatives
• Robots Will Never Be Perfect
• Making Our World “Robot Compatible”

14:34 - Human Behavior Towards Robots; Vice-Versa

• HitchBOT, the hitchhiking robot, gets beheaded in Philadelphia
• Marty the grocery store robot is a glimpse into our hell-ish future
• The robot waiters in this Japanese cafe are controlled by people with paralysis

20:38 - Robots as “Social Entities”

• Safety Transcending Competition
• Contextualization
  • Observable
  • Predictable
  • Directable

24:43 - How Media Affects The Way People View Robots

• Science-Fiction Expectations

26:39 - How Humans Can “Update” Themselves: Experiencing Robotics

• Direct Exposure

28:23 - Robots as “Social Entities” (Cont’d)

• Vigilance Decrement
• Communication Problems
• Change Agent by Daniel Suarez
• What Robots/Humans Will/Should? Expect From Eachother

39:52 - Will and, if so, when will autonomous cars become the standard?

• Swiss Cheese Model

Reflections:

John: What is the right level of empathy for social entities?

Jamey: Being in the process of consciously creating new social norms and thinking more thoroughly about who you could be hurting with your actions.

Push, the talking trash can, makes his final appearance after 19 years at Walt Disney World

Casey: Treating certain social entities in different ways; i.e. a Roomba and a dishwasher. And, the way you have to think about who is outside autonomous cars: not just the passengers. Also, we should be on the lookout for robotaxis!

Laura: Not wanting robots in the future to look too much like people.

This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep of DevReps, LLC. To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode

To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps. You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well.

Special Guest: Laura Major.

Support Greater Than Code