Tag: Service Robots

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Robots in Hawai’i – Part 3

Surveying and collecting rare plant species that grow on steep cliffs has been a risky business for scientists and conservationists for centuries. The world’s first aerial sampling system, which uses a robotic arm suspended from a drone, is attempting to solve this problem in Hawai’i. An article published by Mongabay magazine back in November 2022 states: “In Hawai’i’s Kaua’i island, the world’s first aerial sampling system has successfully flown into high-altitude cliff faces to cut out samples from rare plants and bring them back to a nursery. Scientists call it ‘the Mamba,’ a cutting mechanism on a remote-controlled robotic arm suspended from a drone. The system was developed by Hawai’i-based not-for-profit conservation organization National Tropical Botanical Garden (NTBG) and Quebec-based technology company Outreach Robotics and the University of Sherbrooke in Quebec.” (Mongabay, 9. November 2023) Ben Nyberg, the NTBG’s geographic information system and drone program coordinator, told Mongabay in an interview: “It is really unlocking a lot of areas that have previously been completely inaccessible.” (Mongabay, 9. November 2023) Of course, criminals could also adopt the technology. But it would be almost impossible to smuggle rare plants out of Hawai’i due to strict customs controls.

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Robots in Hawai’i – Part 2

Ruby Tuesday is a popular restaurant in Hawaii (Hawaiian: Hawai’i), on the island of O’ahu. The location close to the airport is not one of the most beautiful ones. The food is also not praised by everyone. But the restaurant is known for its artificial staff. “Our KEENON DINERBOT is helping the staff here deliver trays and plates, so that they can pay more attention to improving customer satisfaction.” This is the message in a promotional video from Keenon Robotics in Singapore. The robot is a classic transport and serving robot. It has large, square blue eyes. In Europe and Asia, BellaBot is best known. It has a cat face and cat ears and is controlled via user input and voice commands. The European model Plato is also shaking up the market. Khon2, a platform from Hawaii, first reported on the new employee at Ruby Tuesday in 2022. “Staffing is such a problem now. Everything from managers down to servers and kitchen help cooks so this really helps our servers out,” Ruby Tuesday owner Rick Nakashima told Khon2 journalists. Indeed, robots of this kind seem to be at least a band-aid for the shortage of skilled workers. Customers’ reactions vary. Some seem to find the robots entertaining. Others say that direct contact with waiters is important to them. The restaurant emphasises that the robot is not intended to replace waiters. Rather, the robot acts as a support.

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Robots in Hawai’i – Part 1

Hawaii (Hawaiian: Hawai’i) is not necessarily associated with robots. But in the larger cities, you can be sure to encounter them. There are service robots such as the Keenon Dinerbot and surgical robots such as the da Vinci Surgical System. In addition, robots are used in the wild, for example for nature conservation. The hospital group in the east of the archipelago advertises with the following words: “East Hawaii Health Clinics is excited to introduce our fully operational robotic surgery center. This state-of-the-art equipment allows us to perform minimally invasive surgeries that would otherwise require greater surgery time and recovery time. We look forward to continuing to provide East Hawaii with exceptional surgical options.” (Website East Hawaii Health Clinics) This type of care is available in Hilo, among other places. The small town on the Big Island has the latest medical technology, such as that used in Basel and Berlin. Hilo is surrounded by tropical rainforest. Nearby are Akaka Falls and Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park. In the city itself, giant banyan trees grow. One must not forget the many homeless people who are at the end of their tether. Like California, Hawai’i has not dealt with this problem. These people will never be able to afford treatment with a surgical robot.

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Students Get Excited about Social Robots

From February 16 to 18, 2023, the elective module “Soziale Roboter aus technischer, wirtschaftlicher und ethischer Sicht” (“Social Robots from a Technical, Economic and Ethical Perspective”) took place at the Brugg-Windisch campus of the School of Business FHNW. The approximately 30 students came from the Basel, Olten, and Brugg-Windisch campuses and from the International Management, Business Informatics, and Business Administration degree programs. Prof. Dr. Oliver Bendel first taught them the basics of robotics and social robotics. In addition, there were excursions into service robotics, proving the thesis that this is increasingly influenced by social robotics: Transport robots and serving robots are getting eyes and mouths, security robots natural language capabilities. In addition, ethical considerations were made, for which empirical foundations had previously been developed. Also present were Pepper, NAO, Alpha Mini, Cozmo and Hugvie, and for a short time little EMO. Guest lectures came from Marc Heimann (CARE-MOMO) and from Lea Peier (barrobots in Switzerland). The students were highly motivated and in the end designed their own social robots with different tasks in group work. This was the third implementation of the elective module and the first at the Brugg-Windisch site. In November 2023, the fourth will take place at the Olten site.

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How Customers React to Bar Robots

As part of the AAAI 2023 Spring Symposia in San Francisco, the symposium “Socially Responsible AI for Well-being” is organized by Takashi Kido (Teikyo University, Japan) and Keiki Takadama (The University of Electro-Communications, Japan). The paper “How Can Bar Robots Enhance the Well-being of Guests?” by Oliver Bendel and Lea K. Peier was accepted. Among other things, they show how customers in Switzerland react to bar robots. The talk will take place between March 26 and 29, 2023 at Hyatt Regency, San Francisco Airport. The symposium website states: “For our happiness, AI is not enough to be productive in exponential growth or economic/financial supremacies but should be socially responsible from the viewpoint of fairness, transparency, accountability, reliability, safety, privacy, and security. For example, AI diagnosis system should provide responsible results (e.g., a high-accuracy of diagnostics result with an understandable explanation) but the results should be socially accepted (e.g., data for AI (machine learning) should not be biased (i.e., the amount of data for learning should be equal among races and/or locations). Like this example, a decision of AI affects our well-being, which suggests the importance of discussing ‘What is socially responsible?’ in several potential situations of well-being in the coming AI age.” (Website AAAI) According to the organizers, the first perspective is “(Individually) Responsible AI”, which aims to clarify what kinds of mechanisms or issues should be taken into consideration to design Responsible AI for well-being. The second perspective is “Socially Responsible AI”, which aims to clarify what kinds of mechanisms or issues should be taken into consideration to implement social aspects in Responsible AI for well-being. More information via www.aaai.org/Symposia/Spring/sss23.php#ss09.

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Licence to Kill?

According to Mission Local, a policy proposal heading for Board of Supervisors approval next week would explicitly authorize San Francisco police to kill suspects using robots. It is the following wording that is causing discussion: “Robots will only be used as a deadly force option when risk of loss of life to members of the public or officers are imminent and outweigh any other force option available to SFPD.” According to the local newspaper, this could mark a legal crossing of the Rubicon: “Robot use-of-force has never before been approved, nor has it ever been prohibited, in San Francisco.” (Mission Local, 22 November 2022) Of what kind of arsenal are we talking, anyway? “The SFPD has 17 robots in its arsenal, 12 of which it describes as fully functional. According to police spokesperson Officer Robert Rueca, they have never been used to attack anyone. The robots are remote-controlled, and are typically used to investigate and defuse potential bombs or to surveil areas too awkward or dangerous for officers to access.” (Mission Local, 22 November 2022) In August 2022, Oliver Bendel gave a talk about police robots at the Robophilosophy 2022 conference. The paper will be published in a few weeks.

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Robots in Law and Policing

Robophilosophy 2022 at the University of Helsinki is the fifth event in the biennial Robophilosophy Conference Series. It “will explore the societal significance of social robots for the future of social institutions with its usual broad scope, embracing both theoretical and practical angles” (CfP Robophilosophy). It “is an invitation to philosophers and other SSH researchers, as well as researchers in social robotics and HRI, to investigate from interdisciplinarily informed perspectives whether and how social robotics as an interdisciplinary endeavour can contribute to the ability of our institutions to perform their functions in society” (CfP Robophilosophy). Social institutions include retirement and nursing homes, strip clubs and brothels, monasteries and seminaries, and police departments. Oliver Bendel (School of Business FHNW) will have the opportunity to present his paper entitled “Robots in Policing” in session 1, “Robots in Law and Policing”. Cindy Friedman (“Granting Negative Rights to Humanoid Robots”) and Jakob Stenseke (“The Use and Abuse of Normative Ethics for Moral Machines”) will speak after him. In addition, a poster by Katharina Kühne and Melinda Mende (University of Potsdam) as well als Oliver Bendel entitled “Tamagotchi on our couch: Are social robots perceived as pets?” was accepted. The full program is now available online.

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Spot in Chernobyl

Boston Dynamics is known for several two- and four-legged robots. Videos often show spectacular movements and stunts. Surely the scenes have to be shot often to be as impressive as possible. The robot Spot has recently been given some new features. Several media report that it was used in Chernobyl. “A team of engineers from the University of Bristol visited the Chernobyl Nuclear Plant last week to test out Spot, a four-legged robodog made by US-based robotics company Boston Dynamics … Spot is capable of making inspection rounds all by itself and can navigate hostile environments such as the highly radioactive site of the former nuclear power plant. Spot went for a walk around the surrounding areas and into the New Safe Confinement structure, a massive moveable dome of steel meant to keep in dangerous radiation from the plant’s number 4 reactor unit, which was destroyed during the 1986 disaster. The robot’s main task was to survey levels of radiation in the area, creating a three-dimensional map of the distribution.” (Website Futurism, 26 October 2020) Spot and Co. stand in the probably oldest tradition of robotics: They take over tasks that are too dangerous or too strenuous for humans.

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Service Robots in Epidemics and Pandemics

On October 14, 2020 the article “Der Einsatz von Servicerobotern bei Epidemien und Pandemien” (“The use of service robots in epidemics and pandemics”) by Oliver Bendel was published in HMD – Praxis der Wirtschaftsinformatik. From the abstract: “Robots have always been used to carry out dangerous tasks or tasks that are not manageable for us. They defuse bombs, transport hazardous materials and work their way into areas inaccessible to humans. The COVID-19 pandemic has shown that even service robots, which are not actually intended for special cases, can provide helpful services in the care of isolated persons and in the containment of diseases. This paper presents four types of service robots. Then it gives examples of robot use during the coronavirus crisis in 2020. Finally, the question in which extent and in what way the robot types can cooperate and whether some of them can be developed into generalists is examined. Business models and operating opportunities are also discussed. The paper shows that cohorts of robots could be vital in the future.” It is part of Volume 57, Issue 6 (December 2020) with a focus on robotics and is available here for free as an open access publication (in German).

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Robot Performs COVID-19 Tests

The COVID-19 pandemic has given a boost to service robotics. Transport, safety and care robots are in demand, as are cleaning and disinfection robots. Service robots measure the temperature of passengers at airports and railway stations. Now they can also perform COVID-19 tests.  “Robotics researchers from the University of Southern Denmark have developed the world’s first fully automatic robot capable of carrying out throat swabs for Covid-19, so that healthcare professionals are not exposed to the risk of infection. The prototype has successfully performed throat swabs on several people. The scientists behind are cheering: The technology works!” (Website SDU, 27 May 2020) A robot arm as known from the industry was used. The end piece comes from the 3D printer. This is another example from the health sector that shows how industrial robots – such as cobots – can become service robots. More information via www.sdu.dk/en/nyheder/forskningsnyheder/robot-kan-pode-patienter-for-covid-19.