Humane Robots—from Robots with a Humanoid Body to Robots with an Anthropomorphic Mind

The ANEMONE: Theoretical Foundations for UX Evaluation of Action and Intention Recognition in Human-Robot Interaction

“…In the work leading up to this publication, we realized that we had to narrow down the more generic UX evaluation approach combined with AT as the theoretical lens by paying more attention to actions and intention recognition per se . One tentative way forward in this step was to take a cognitive science-oriented approach, since some prior research on action recognition between human(s) and robot(s) has investigated and analyzed how social robots could be used as “interactive probes” to study and assess the specific sensory and motor mechanisms that are used in social human-human interaction (e.g., [ 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 , 24 , 26 , 28 , 30 , 31 , 32 , 33 , 34 ]). Related research has been carried out in order to investigate whether a similar ‘understanding’ could also happen beyond interacting humans to encompass interactions between human(s) and robot(s) [ 30 , 31 , 32 , 33 , 34 ].…”

“…During the last two decades, research in the cognitive sciences fields, in particular embodied social cognition and cognitive neuroscience, has witnessed profound advancement in elucidating the underlying mechanisms of the recognition of actions and intentions in social interactions between humans that is fundamental to mutual interaction between humans, in which the mirror neuron system plays a significant role (e.g., [ 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 , 23 , 24 , 25 , 26 , 27 , 28 ]). As pointed out by Vernon, Thill, and Ziemke [ 26 ], among others, there is a huge challenge to accomplish analogous mutual as well as fluent action and intention recognition between humans and robots as in social human-human interaction [ 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 , 23 , 24 , 25 , 26 , 27 , 28 ], due to the apparent differences between the fundamental biological mechanisms in living human beings compared to the technological ones currently used in robots [ 17 , 19 , 25 , 26 , 27 , 28 , 29 ]. From a more embodied social cognition perspective, there is a major difference in how living agents enact a social world based on the underlying sensori-motor processes, particularly the mechanisms of the mirror neuron system, compared to the electrical wirings and technological implementation of artificial cognitive agents like robots [ 25 , 26 , 27 , …”

“…It is argued that mutual interaction between humans and humans is needed if robots should be considered as partners instead of as tools [ 17 , 19 , 30 , 35 , 36 , 37 ], but to what extent they need to grasp the intentions of others is a much debated issue. However, at least it is argued that to achieve some kind of action and intention recognition between humans and robots, which possibly is a pre-requisite for some basic social interaction skills [ 24 , 26 , 28 , 30 ], is necessary for developing into engaging in more advanced forms of social interaction such as joint actions and mutual collaboration [ 38 , 39 , 40 , 41 , 42 , 43 , 44 , 45 , 46 , 47 , 48 , 49 , 50 , 51 , 52 , 53 , 54 , 55 ]. In other words, it requires that robots are able to perceive similar emotional and behavioral patterns and environmental cues as humans do (e.g., [ 1 , 5 , 53 , 54 , 55 ]).…”

“…In the fields of HRI and robotics, there has been a lot of research on robots identifying, understanding, and predicting human intention and actions (e.g., [ 1 , 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 , 24 , 33 , 39 , 40 , 41 , 45 , 50 , 51 , 52 ]). It should be noted, however, that there is little existent work where robots are able to fully satisfy the requirements for having recognition capacities, although they display some aspect of recognition.…”

Anti-anthropomorphism and Its Limits

“…This ecological worry should inspire the attempts to humanize both robot's bodies and their minds. (Sandini and Sciutti, 2018 , p. 2) stress the difference between “illusorily humanizing robots” and the challenge to make them more “humane”: “A humane robot is a robot considerate of humans, that is, one that maintains a model of humans in order to understand and predict human needs intentions, and limitations, while being transparent, legible, and predictable. The ultimate robot may not be anthropomorphic, but it needs to have at least an anthropomorphic mind” It is interesting to note that the above mentioned attributive mechanisms, i.e., the anthropomorphic mental triggers, are good guides to design both humanoid bodies, endowed with the right mentalization cues, and humane robot minds, endowed with the same cognitive abilities to discover these cues in human overt behavior.…”