November 19, 2008, 4:07 PM — Robots are fun to play with, but
they can be insolent during social interaction with humans if
badly programmed, a researcher said on Tuesday. It is important
to program robots to change moods by better understanding and
adapting to human behavior, especially as robots play a bigger
role in assisted living, said Maja MatariÄ‡, founding director
of the University of Southern California's Center for Robotics
and Embedded Systems, during a speech at the RoboDevelopment
conference on Tuesday in Santa Clara, California. "You can endow
a robot with a personality ... but it should not be rude,"
MatariÄ‡ said. Unlike some humans, robots are not sociopaths,
MatariÄ‡ said. Robots can stay a distance away and still
interact with a person. However, people, especially at-risk
patients, need social interaction, so the closer and more mobile
a robot, the better. By taking cues from body movement and
health readings gathered from a body, robots can adapt behavior
and take better care of patients,