Clarifications for those interested... (Score 1)

It's an honor to be slashdotted- thanks! Given the interest in our project I'd thought I break out of lurker mode and try to address some of the questions/concerns, since it's hard to judge technology from descriptions in the popular press. The robot isn't fully autonomous-- it's serving as a medium between humans "behind" the robot with humans "in front" of the robot and the rest of the world. As it stands now, had we found survivors at one of our responses, the operator would have spoken over the 2 way audio. Fine, but what happens when you have multiple people trying to talk to the survivor? Should the robot use a single voice? A synthetic voice? It seems easy, but I recommend Dr. Cliff Nass' book "The Media Equation" which is about how we subconsciously react to media such as coming through computers. The project is less about computer science and more applying what the communications and psychology researchers have known for years. Another point is that a robot being driven by a medical person tends to be socially inconsistent. It gets too close, too fast. The doctor is talking through the 2-way audio but the robot is not making eye-contact... Our initial research indicates that this is a significant problem, even though it seems counter-intuitive. Shouldn't we be just glad the robot (and the doctor) is helping? Again, check out The Media Equation and Cliff's work. Our lower brain rules, same as it ever was. If you want a sci-fi analogy, the closest I think is the surrogates in Stations of the Tide. Again, thank you for the interest and feedback. Prof. Robin Murphy (replying as an individual entity with the usual caveats about my comments not necessarily reflecting the opinions/policies of my sponsors and colleagues unless they liked what I said.)