to focus on this solution, but I want to say that we are not against like robots, we developed
for five years like robots and we are still working on that, but this is a research project
for us. It's not focused on real world scenarios right now. These like robots, now we focus
more on research projects, not on like on other kind of sectors, so, okay.
From a very pragmatic point of view, it's true that if the robot is bigger, it's probably
safer today to have wheels, but that's why it's a relevant decision to have, if you want
to have a product rapidly, it's probably better to have wheels, but if you want to have application,
future application, you have to keep on working on that, so I'll really share the opinion of
my colleague. Yes, from our point of view, there are a lot of components you need to
build a robot and for us, the entertainment factor dominates us, what we can do is to
make some entertainment stuff and to keep the robot in touch with the human, so I think
this is one building block you have to do if you want that the robot is not only a toy,
you think you can sell this in the future as a separate component as each other software
has, and this is one opportunity for us to do something in the robot market.
Someone else?
It's a compromise to find between the cost, the reliability and the service you bring,
and we have to find a good balance between that, but the reliability is probably the most important
thing, because if you have 100,000 robots all over the world, you have to assume a very good
quality to avoid a lot of maintenance on it, so probably that is the bottleneck, to go from
a prototype that can work fine to a product that works 24 hours a day and seven days a week,
and that makes probably a very important bottleneck to go to a large audience useful
product, as if it's only for entertainment, you have to give maybe the quality and it's not so
important, but you have to bring the price very, very low, and that is another bottleneck, so all
the point is to have a trade-off between quality, price and service you bring, and this is a very
difficult balance to find.
I really think we have to be inspired by the industry of cars and airplanes, and in the new
Romeo project, we are working with people who are in charge of software safety, how to be sure that
your software won't have bugs, and they have implemented their method in the nuclear power
plants, in planes, in cars, and we have to be inspired by that, and that's for the software
point of view, and for the mechanical, for the electronical point of view, we also have to take
advantage of what they've done before us, but it's possible when you have a big market, it's a
problem of egg and chicken, you say in English, you can have access to this reliability if you
have a big market, and you'll have the big market if you have the reliability, so you have to start
the cycle, and that's a very difficult thing.
And you need to get feedback from the customer?
Yes, yes.
Does Audubon have such a system of...
We do, we do, and we also are developing more and more internal tests, and more long-term tests
to discover the failures before customers, but of course, we are trying to have a complete
feedback from our customers, but when we don't have any news from a customer with a product,
we don't know if it's because he's happy or because he's not happy at all, and the robot is
somewhere in a closet and doesn't use it anymore, so we try to spend time to call them to have
information about that, but that's something you discover when you are in charge of a product that
it's good to have feedback, and that's why, for instance, now in my hotel, when I have a ticket
saying, have you been happy with your room, I always feel it, because I know that for the other side,
it's good to have feedback, bad or good feedback, so that is something we have to change in the mind of people.
This is not in the plan for 2030, to be honest.
You mean 10 Romeo or 10 now?
Some people depend on your policy.
This is not really in the plan. We plan to do a competition next year that will finish in 2014.
We don't really know about the price, but I don't think this will be enough.
Just a Romeo.
Just a Romeo, exactly.
Obviously, there is a research project here, and if there would be, would you be able to single out a single
cognitive ability which you wanted to have on the robot, which is not just reactive perception or reactive behavior,
but is there something which is in reach, but it's not that there, what you would like to have on the now or on the room or over there?
I really enjoyed the talk on Rudy, because plenty of things that you had mentioned are very interesting for us.
The dialogue, the way the robot can memorize the context, the situation, and that will create a real connection
between the people and the robot. The robot remembers, oh, last week you did that, and it was not fine.
This week you beat it again, and it's better, and that really creates a real relationship between the robot and the robot.
In the case of R, we also thought about something like that, a more complex dialogue, a checkbox, but it was decided that
it would also raise expectations of the user that the robot would be a really intelligent machine, and you would then start to talk to the robot as if it was a real friend,
and ultimately, the environment argued about it, it would lead to filtration, because the user would at some time be disappointed,
so you can keep him happy for five, maybe ten minutes, or maybe even an hour, but eventually we were really mad about him,
and that's why we didn't even start about it. So if there are any questions, do you also find that, or can you really keep your users happy forever?
No, I think this is not now, because you already know speech recognition is not so good, that you can rely on the result of it,
but nevertheless, you need something to give the robot the opportunity to act, and these are stories for us in our opinion,
and we have to do a lot of work in this direction to make this creature, yes, acting like a human.
So we need, when I want someone, I need something where it's experienced, and it's actually with me,
and for us, it can only be the storage.
But then we have an end, my fellow.
Yeah, but you will like Watson, the thing from IBM, they put a lot of stuff in it to play Jeopardy,
and the whole thing you have to do with robots to have a lot of experience, can handle situations.
So you're still working on it to make it more smart, but these are some kind of a stop condition when the robot says,
yes, then we have to look for another user who is not so happy.
This is true, but nevertheless, when the dog is not hearing, not listening, or the child is not listening, what do you want to say?
This is not okay, the third time you listen to me write, so go away.
So this is a living creature one day.
So you have to act with this situation that you don't really understand what you mean.
Maybe you get frustrated, yes, maybe not.
Can you have an exit strategy, like the robot says, oh, I'm tired now, and please do all that stuff, and so on.
You have to check it out, you can measure how you react, the robot can estimate if the user gets angry,
because he's crying or making something like this, and he can try out different situations, how he can act in this situation.
He knows, okay, I don't understand, I don't know what to do.
I can try to go away, for example, and see how the user reacts.
Maybe he likes it when I go away, something like this.
I just want to answer your question.
This is a work that we have to do with robot manufacturers, together with healthcare institutions, to find this application.
But it's important to talk with them, but talk with their final users.
The way to talk with final users is to have good communication skills with the robot.
The robot should have good communication skills.
Receiving this communication and providing the information.
But I just want to add one more thing that usually is not added in this kind of applications.
The robots, they don't have to be only reactive to people, they can also be proactive.
So if there is a group of people who are there, the robot can go to provide some service to the people,
and ask if they want something, not just wait until someone is going to a robot.
We also find that when we put the robots in real world environments, many people are afraid to use a robot.
They don't know how to use a robot.
So maybe the robot can give information about how the robot can be used.
Here we are kind of, I don't want to say anyone, but we are kind of freaks of robotics,
and we know how to interact with robots.
But when we go out and talk with people that they know, they have no extra approach,
they see a robot and they see how it's very nice, but what the robot can do.
They don't know how to use it, how to.
So then the robot should do some productivity to help people to use the robot.
Many asked also another thing.
You have worked with the FKI, so you have considered and it reduces the amount of technologies.
So the capability of the robot to deal with technology, with the technology and with the formalization of something.
Do you think semantic web could go inside the robot, or the robot should go inside the semantic web, or turn solution as possible?
I think the robot should go to look for mission into the semantic web.
You can't have everything, you can't know everything.
For instance, in the last version of the new speech recognition,
there is an embedded part of the speech recognition on the robot,
but if it doesn't understand, it will send your sentence somewhere on the web and get the answer afterwards.
It's not semantic, but it's a way the robot can get information far away from him,
and for instance, look for semantic information.
What is your view on the management of the historical series?
So you have a very nice example with a lady dealing with the family through the robot,
but historical information, I have already called my family to answer was,
have you considered the scenario in which the robot is trying to reuse the information and to help based on the past information or past knowledge?
Yes, we are considering it, and it's a part of a research project we're starting now.
So yeah, of course, as I said, it's a way to create the real strong connection between the robot and the human.
And we add in mind as well that, I don't know if it's a good solution, but that's something we are thinking of,
is to have the spirit of the robot that is available somewhere on the cloud.
And that means that if I met you now, you now recognize me,
and then we'll look for my reference in my story somewhere,
ask to my now, hey, it's your Rudolph, could you send me everything you know about him?
And I will find on your now exactly the same things, information, features I have on my now.
So it could be, you know, the robot is your robot is everywhere.
It could be somewhere in your car. Your car can't do everything that your robot can do,
but it can use some of your preferences and your car will take advantage of what now your robot knows about you.
Okay, given the time, I think it's good to close today's session.
I would like to thank all the speakers very much.
Warm hands, tall speakers.
Well, we've seen the case of our project from different perspectives,
and we have seen the industry also from different perspectives.
I really appreciate everybody for coming here, and I appreciate the fruitful discussion.