Author: Oliver Bendel

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The Uncanny Social Robot

The uncanny valley effect is a famous hypothesis. Whether it can be influenced by context is still unclear. In an online experiment, Katharina Kühne and her co-authors Oliver Bendel, Yuefang Zue, and Martin Fischer found a negative linear relationship between a robot’s human likeness and its likeability and trustworthiness, and a positive linear relationship between a robot’s human likeness and its uncaniness. “Social context priming improved overall likability and trust of robots but did not modulate the Uncanny Valley effect.” (Abstract) Katharina Kühne outlined these conclusions in her presentation “Social, but Still Uncanny” – the title of the paper – at the International Conference on Social Robotics 2024 in Odense, Denmark. Like Yuefang Zue and Martin Fischer, she is a researcher at the University of Potsdam. Oliver Bendel teaches and researches at the FHNW School of Business. Together with Tamara Siegmann, he presented a second paper at the ICSR.

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Robots in Prison

On October 22, 2024, Tamara Siegmann and Prof. Dr. Oliver Bendel (School of Business FHNW) presented their project “Robots in Prison” at the ICSR in Odense (Denmark). They investigated whether collaborative and social robots can and should be used in prisons. One result was that modern industrial robots such as cobots and classic service robots such as transportation and cleaning robots hardly create any added value. Instead, they take work away from inmates. In contrast, social robots are conceivable and useful. They bring something to imprisonment that is common in freedom. And – an important point for resocialization – they can combat the loneliness of inmates. The International Conference on Social Robotics is the most important conference for social robotics alongside Robophilosophy. The paper “Social and Collaborative Robots in Prison” will be published in a proceedings volume by Springer at the end of the year.

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A New School of Computer Science

All four cantons supporting the FHNW approved the global budget of CHF 204.7 million in September and October 2024. This also clears the way for the new Hochschule für Informatik FHNW (assumed name FHNW School of Computer Science) with a main location in Brugg-Windisch and a secondary location north of the Jura (Basel-Landschaft and Basel-Stadt). It is due to be founded at the beginning of 2025 and will begin its studies in fall 2025. From this date, it will take over the existing computer science courses at the FHNW School of Engineering. During the 2025 – 2028 performance mandate period, the plan is to establish further education and training courses and develop research and development activities. The aim of the new university is to educate and train the IT specialists required by business and administration in Northwestern Switzerland. The degree programs and courses offered by the FHNW School of Business in business information technology, artificial intelligence, and robotics are not affected by this change.  The FHNW School of Computer Science will be the tenth university under the umbrella of the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland (Photo: Pati Grabowicz).

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Back to the Future

Elon Musk presented the prototypes of his new Cybercab and his new Robovan in October 2024. In this context, he once again said: “The future should look like the future.” (TechCrunch, 10 October 2024) This is an astonishing statement, because if you know a little about the history of robot and vehicle construction, you know that Elon Musk is orientating himself on ideas that were popular 20 to 80 years ago. Brass, copper, silver, gold, and large, matt or polished surfaces – reminiscent of Elektro (1939) and his animal companion Sparko (1940) as well as futuristic vehicles such as Gil Spear’s Chrysler two-seater (1941). Science fiction and fantasy are also likely to play a role in the design of Tesla and co – think of steampunk and cyberpunk in general, and think of movies like “Metropolis” (1927) and “I, Robot” (2004). Elon Musk generally likes to mix ideas from fiction in his developments, for example the large language model called Grok, which takes its name from “Stranger in a Strange Land” and is intended to fulfil claims formulated in “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”. TechCrunch also points out the backward-looking nature of the Robovan: “The Robovan has a retro-futuristic look – somewhere between a bus from The Jetsons and a toaster from the 1950s. It features silver metallic sides with black details, and strips of light run-ning parallel to the ground along its sides, with doors that slide out from the middle.” (TechCrunch, 10 October 2024) Robots and robotic vehicles could look very different in the 2020s (Photo: Eirik Newth; cropped by Robophilosophy).

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Robotics in Retail

September 25, 2024 was the first day of the AI & Robotics4Retail Conference 2024 in Bonn. It was part of the “ECR Day 2024”, which took place at the World Conference Center. Numerous practical presentations provide an insight into the most important AI and robotics topics in retail at the moment and provide important ideas for projects in your own company, according to the website. The keynote speech was given by Prof. Dr. Oliver Bendel on the topic of “Service robots from a technical, economic and ethical perspective”. From the description: “Service robots have become widespread as cleaning, transportation, and security robots. As vacuum and mopping robots, they can be found in households, airports and hotels. As transport robots, they move around factories and warehouses, move between the buffet and kitchen in restaurants or bring orders to customers in cities. In the form of social robots, they advise and serve us in shopping malls or entertain our children while we shop. Universal robots, human-like machines that help in production and logistics in the morning, dig up the garden in the afternoon and play tennis with us in the evening, are just around the corner. They are connected to multimodal language models that enable or improve their control and perception. The talk presents use cases of this kind, classifies them from a technical, economic and ethical perspective, and takes a look into the future.” Further information about www.robotics-konferenz.de.

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The Animal Whisperer at ACI 2024

The paper “The Animal Whisperer Project” by Oliver Bendel and Nick Zbinden will be presented at ACI 2024, which takes place in Glasgow this December. It is a conference that brings together the small community of experts in animal-computer interaction and animal-machine interaction. This includes Oliver Bendel, who has been researching in this field since 2012, with a background in animal ethics from the 1980s and 1990s. He initiated the Animal Whisperer project. The developer was Nick Zbinden, who graduated from the FHNW School of Business. From March 2024, three apps were created on the basis of GPT-4: the Cow Whisperer, the Horse Whisperer, and the Dog Whisperer. They can be used to analyze the body language, behaviour, and environment of cows, horses, and dogs. The aim is to avert danger to humans and animals. For example, a hiker can receive a recommendation on his or her smartphone not to cross a pasture if a mother cow and her calves are present. All he or she has to do is call up the application and take photos of the surroundings. The three apps are available as prototypes since August 2024. With the help of prompt engineering and retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), they have been given extensive knowledge and skills. Above all, self-created and labeled photos were used. In the majority of cases, the apps correctly describe the animals’ body language and behavior. Their recommendations for human behavior are also adequate (Image: DALL-E 3).

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Can and Should We Use Robots in Prisons?

Tamara Siegmann and Prof. Dr. Oliver Bendel carried out the “Robots in Prison” project in June and July 2024. The student, who is studying business administration at the FHNW School of Business, came up with the idea after taking an elective module on social robots with Oliver Bendel. In his paper “Love Dolls and Sex Robots in Unproven and Unexplored Fields of Application”, the philosopher of technology had already made a connection between robots and prisons, but had not systematically investigated this. They did this together with the help of expert interviews with the intercantonal commissioner for digitalization, several prison directors and employees as well as inmates. The result was the paper “Social and Collaborative Robots in Prison”, which was submitted to the ICSR 2024. The International Conference on Social Robotics is the most important conference for social robotics alongside Robophilosophy. The paper was accepted in September 2024 after a revision of the methods section, which was made more transparent and extensive and linked to a directory on GitHub. This year’s conference will take place in Odense (Denmark) from October 23 to 26. Last year it was held in Doha (Qatar) and the year before last in Florence (Italy).

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AI Ethics at the FHNW

Prof. Dr. Oliver Bendel has been teaching information ethics, AI ethics, robot ethics, and machine ethics at the FHNW for around 15 years. He is responsible for the “Ethik und Technologiefolgenabschätzung” (“Ethics and Technology Assessment”) module in the new Business AI degree program at the FHNW School of Business in Olten. Here, the focus is on AI ethics, but students will also learn about robot ethics and machine ethics approaches – including annotated decision trees and moral prompt engineering. And they will use information ethics, including data ethics, to analyze and evaluate the origins and flows of data and information and engage in bias discussions. Last but not least, they will delve into technology assessment. Oliver Bendel also teaches the “Ethik und Recht” (“Ethics and Law”) module in the Business Information Systems degree program at the FHNW School of Business in Olten (which he took over in 2010 as “Informatik, Ethik und Gesellschaft”, later renamed “Informationsethik”), the “Recht und Ethik” (“Law and Ethics”) module in the Geomatics degree program at the FHNW School of Architecture, Construction and Geomatics in Muttenz, and “Ethisches Reflektieren” (“Ethical Reflecting”) and “Ethisches Implementieren” (“Ethical Implementing”) in the Data Science degree program at the FHNW School of Engineering in Brugg-Windisch. His elective modules on social robotics are very popular (Photo: Pati Grabowicz).

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Start of the kAIxo Project

Chatbots for dead, endangered, and extinct languages are being developed at the FHNW School of Business. One well-known example is @llegra, a chatbot for Vallader. Oliver Bendel recently tested the reach of GPTs for endangered languages such as Irish (Irish Gaelic), Maori, and Basque. According to ChatGPT, there is a relatively large amount of training material for them. On May 12, 2024 – after Irish Girl and Maori Girl – a first version of Adelina, a chatbot for Basque, was created. It was later improved in a second version. As part of the kAIxo project (the Basque “kaixo” corresponds to the english “hello”), the chatbot or voice assistant kAIxo is to be developed that speaks Basque. The purpose is to keep users practicing written or spoken language or to develop the desire to learn the endangered language. The chatbot should be based on a Large Language Model (LLM). Both prompt engineering and fine-tuning are conceivable for customization. Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) can play a central role. The result will be a functioning prototype. Nicolas Lluis Araya, a student of business informatics, has been recruited to implement the project. The kick-off meeting will take place on September 3, 2024.

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Continuation of the AAAI Spring Symposia

On 27 August 2024, AAAI announced the continuation of the AAAI Spring Symposium Series, to be held March 31 – April 2, 2025, at San Francisco Airport Marriott Waterfront in Burlingame, CA. The Call for Proposals for the Spring Symposium Series is available on the Spring Symposium Series website. According to the organizers, proposals are due October 4, 2024, and early submissions are encouraged. “The Spring Symposium Series is an annual set of meetings run in parallel at a common site. It is designed to bring colleagues together in an intimate forum while at the same time providing a significant gathering point for the AI community.” (Website AAAI) The traditional conference will therefore not be held at Stanford University in 2025 – as it was in 2023. It returned there in 2024 to the delight of all participants. The Covid-19 pandemic had hit the conference hard before. The AAAI can only be advised to return to Stanford in 2026. Only there will the conference live up to its promise.