Social engineered robot design

The idea is that robots will be able to learn how to recognize, classify, and even behave in certain situations by interacting with people like a child does: by watching and listening to what people do and say, and by trying to imitate them. My research focuses on a small part of this bigger picture: on the design of learning algorithms that help robots learn from people. Implementing a social robot requires designing a robot that can recognize and classify people, and then interact with them in a meaningful way. To do this, we need to develop learning algorithms for robots that can help them recognize and classify people, and then learn how to interact with them. The problem of learning from interaction is a hard problem. It is difficult because interactions are complex and dynamic. People are complex Robots need to interact with people, but people are complex. People have a rich set of physical, verbal, and non-verbal behaviors. People have a rich set of goals. People have different personalities. People are unpredictable. People know when they are being observed, and act accordingly. People change as they interact with others. Interactions are complex People have many ways to interact with each other. People use physical gestures, speech, facial expressions, body posture, and more. People use many different kinds of words. People use different kinds of words to convey different kinds of meanings. People use words to suggest actions. People use words to suggest the kinds of actions they might be willing to take. People use words to negotiate the kinds of actions they might take. People use words to negotiate how their actions might be received. People use words to negotiate how actions might be received. People suggest actions that are not available at the moment. People suggest actions that might be available at a later time. People change their minds, and suggest new actions, new ways of doing things, and new ways of negotiating. People demonstrate their understanding using words. People use words to show their understanding of the current situation, their understanding of what they are doing, and their understanding of what they are going to do next.