Walking with Robots wins Academy Award

No, not that academy, but an academy award all the same. Last night WWR won the Royal Academy of Engineering 2010 Rooke medal for the Public Promotion of Engineering. What can I say. It was wonderful for Walking with Robots to be recognised and acknowledged in this way. It was a great project. If there had been an acceptance speech we would have had a large number of thankyous: the EPSRC who funded WWR; the amazing WWR network of roboticists and engagers from about 12 universities and as many companies; Claire Rocks who - as brilliant WWR network coordinator - more than anyone made things happen, and of course the RAEng for this award. Thank you! And we had a wonderful evening.

Here we are receiving the award from Lord Browne (third from the left). On the left is Noel Sharkey and Owen Holland, and on the right me, Karen Bultitude and Claire Rocks.

Robotic Visions in Parliament

I've blogged before about the excellent Robotic Visions project and - yes I admit it - I have a soft spot for Visions: its where public engagement gets political. Yesterday that happened quite literally as Robotic Visions went to Parliament. Representatives from 3 of the schools who were involved in Visions conferences in Newcastle, Oxford and Bristol came, with their teachers, to the Houses of Parliament to present their visions to roboticists, industrialists and of course parliamentarians.

Here's what I said.

"Imagine personal robot instead of personal computer. Imagine in old age you could have a robot nurse. Your grandchildren a robot teddy, that talks to them, reads them a story, and keeps an eye on them at the same time. Right now these things are possibilities but would we - should we - want them?

Intelligent Robotics is a technology likely to impact every aspect of future life and society. Intelligent robots will - for example - change the way we treat illness and look after the elderly, how we run our homes and workplaces, how we manage our waste, harvest our crops or mine for resources and - I’m sorry to say - how we fight our wars. But as we build smarter robots the boundaries between robots as mere machines, and robots as friends or companions, will become blurred - raising new and challenging ethical questions. This may seem to be a statement of the obvious, but robotics technology will have a much greater impact on our children’s generation than on my generation.

So what is it that makes intelligent robots different to other technologies in a way that means we need to have special concerns about their future impact? It is - I suggest - two factors in combination. Firstly, agency - the ability to make decisions without human intervention. And secondly, the ability to draw an emotional response from humans. Right now we have plenty of machines with agency, within limits, like airline autopilots or room thermostats. We also have machines that generate emotional responses: Ferraris or iPods, for example. Intelligent robots are different because they bring these two elements together in a potent new combination that - frankly - we don’t yet fully understand.

It is, therefore, very important that our children should have the opportunity to understand what robots can and can’t do right now, and where intelligent robotics research is taking us. It is important that our children understand and debate the implications of robotics technology, and make their own minds up about how robots should, or should not, be used in society. And it is important that those views should be heard - and taken seriously – by robotics researchers, funders and policy makers.

I have been immensely impressed by the enthusiasm with which teenagers have engaged in the Robotic Visions Conferences. The views that they have expressed are articulate, serious and insightful, and - on behalf of the Robotics Visions project team - I invite you to consider those views and quotes in the summary paper and on the posters in this room, and to meet with their representatives here today."

Can I have a robot for Christmas?

I was delighted to be asked to give the annual Christmas lecture to the Nottingham Medico Chirurgical society last night, in the medical school of the famous Queens Medical Centre, Nottingham. Founded in 1828 Nottingham Med-Chi, as they like to call themselves, is one of the oldest such societies in the UK. It was a great audience, with a healthy mix of children and very eminent medics who together kept me on my toes when it came to questions and answers.

In my talk I focus on the current strong convergence of biology and robotics, but in reflecting and speaking with the medics afterwards I was struck that the next big convergence in robotics (perhaps the next wave after biology) will be with medicine. As our understanding of the human body and its astonishingly complex processes and mechanisms deepens, then - in a sense - medicine becomes more like ultra precision engineering. And as robotics moves toward artificial life, then engineering robots becomes far removed from mechanical and electrical engineering and more like bio-medical engineering. For a good example look at the BRL's Ecobot III, with all of its plumbing and bio-chemistry. Hence the convergence I predict.

Postscript: the Notts Med-Chi society is very firmly in the 21st C: I discovered my Christmas lecture can be downloaded as a podcast on iTunes.

e-pucks in Osaka

Gave some Walking with Robots talks at an elementary school today, in Ikeda Japan (near Osaka). The e-pucks were a great success with the children, and were joined by some amazing Japanese robots, like Paro - the robot seal. Pictures to follow...

The robots are coming (to Manchester)

If you're in or around Manchester Saturday 24th - Tuesday 27th October, do come and see us at the Walking with Robots festival of robotics - part of the Manchester Science Festival.

Here are links to the events:

• Footballing robots
• A pub guide to robots
• Robot scenes
• Robotics networking event
• Robots in the home: Coming soon or urban myth?
• Walking with Robots: What are the questions?
• Robo-mania at the Museum of Science and Industry

Robotic Visions at At-Bristol

The first Robotic Visions conference has started here in the Science Learning Centre of At-Bristol! We have around 25 students from 4 schools. As the day progresses I'll be posting updates, and some pictures, here:

2.00pm The five groups have come up with their big issues:

1. Robots looking after us
2. Robots Venturing into Space
3. Robot Family and Friends (companions)
4. Robot Teachers and Trainers
5. Equal access to Robot Technology for rich and poor

What a great set of issues. Especially the last one.

5.00pm We just finished the celebration session in which the five groups presented their findings and recommendations to the invited VIPs. Four of the groups elected to have show and tell presentations with posters and written material - all of which were brilliant. The 'equal access' group, instead read out a powerful and moving statement that was both critical of technology for technology's sake, when set against real issues such as poverty, while at the same time calling for a strong ethical approach to robotics. Hopefully I can get hold of a copy of that statement and post it here.

Robotic Visions goes nationwide

Really great news. We learned today that our EPSRC bid to take Robotic Visions nationwide has been granted.

Let me explain what Robotic Visions is. About a year and a half ago we (that is Walking with Robots) ran an event in London called the Young Person's Visions conference, co-organised with the excellent London Engineering Project and the Royal Academy of Engineering (RAE). We brought about 20 young people - aged between 16-18 - to the grand setting of the RAE for 2 days and asked them to think and talk about what kind of robotics technology they would like in their future. They met with and took evidence from roboticists, in much the same way that a parliamentary select committee does, and at the end formed and agreed a set of recommendations. Those recommendations have now been published by the RAE to inform senior members of the academy and other policy-makers: click here to see that report.

See my blog post on that event here: the future doesn't just happen - we must own it. The new grant will now allow us to run the same kind of event in other venues across the UK: Bristol, Newcastle, Aberystwyth, Glasgow and Oxford.

WWR @ Disneyland in January

Just gave a Walking with Robots talk for about 450 school children, at Disneyland, Paris. The Gaumont cinema to be precise, on the Disneyland complex. This was the first time I've given a talk in a cinema - with my slides projected onto the giant sized cinema screen behind me!

My audience, who I discovered had been bussed from various schools across the UK, were attending a Royal Institution Study Experience - a kind of science winter camp. Even allowing for the cold and grey January weather - what a great way to spend a few days of intensive hands-on science.

Heart Robot and BSc Robotics

It has been brilliant to see the amazing coverage of the Heart Robot project during the last two days. Check out this piece on BBC news online, or Google Heart Robot. Heart robot was jointly conceived by my colleagues Matthew Studley (lecturer in Robotics), Claire Rocks (research fellow) and BSc robotics student David McGoran. Matt and Claire wrote the bid for funding from the EPSRC partnerships for public engagement scheme, with David as a named researcher. I don't need to describe Heart Robot because you can see the whole story on the excellent project web pages here http://www.heartrobot.org.uk/.

The reason for this post is to say Way to go Team, and to anybody out there who might be thinking of studying robotics at university: this is what can happen when you come and do robotics at UWE!.

How to make a fool of yourself on national radio

Being interviewed live on national radio is an interesting experience.

It's not so bad when you're in a studio face to face with the interviewer. Then there's a proper sense of occasion, of being there for a purpose, something to rise to.

But being interviewed by telephone is an altogether different and more risky proposition. Why risky? Let me set the scene. You've agreed to be interviewed by a national radio station that has, hitherto, never blipped onto your cultural radar. The producer called and asked if you would be able to comment, in the science slot of the breakfast show, about a recent newspaper article listing the top 10 reasons that mankind could be wiped out this century. In particular the one that predicts mankind will, within 40 years, build super-intelligent robots who promptly (and ungratefully) enslave their creators. Quickly passing over your observation that said producer seems surprisingly laid back, you say to yourself - can't be so bad - they have a science slot. And of course you would be grateful for the opportunity to explain why this particular prediction is laughably absurd.

You rise early the following morning, after checking the news piece and giving some thought to how you can counter this particular piece of futurology. (Which turns out to be based on the mistaken assumption that because processing power is doubling roughly every 2 years, then robot intelligence is doing the same.)

With 20 minutes to spare you find the radio station on the Interweb and click the listen now button. The presenter starts to talk about robots-taking-over-the-world and invites a phone in. He wants listeners to phone with mad robot inventions and introduce them with a robot voice. Hmmm. At this point you begin to realise that the science slot doesn't have quite the level of gravitas that you might have hoped for.

Then the phone rings. Butterflies. Ok, normal. It's the laid back producer again. After a few minutes listening to the radio on the phone you hear yourself being introduced and you're on. This bit is always weird. You're on the phone with a few hundred thousand people on the other end. Just focus. It's only a conversation with some guy. Nevermind that he's called Xane. Or the fact that he just egregiously misquoted the article by inserting the words 'taking-over-the-world' between 'probability of super-intelligent robots' and 'high'.

The first couple of questions are kind of ok. More or less what you expected. You carefully explain that no, in your opinion it's extremely unlikely that we will build robots with super-human intelligence in the next 40 years and, even if we did, why should they be evil and take over the world (or more to the point why would we make them evil). Then some relatively innocuous questions: What is the most powerful robot in the world - is it Asimo? Er no, Asimo is actually remotely controlled by a team of 6. What about that freaky monkey robot with the robot arm? Well, that's not so much a robot as work to improve neural electronic interfaces to help people with smart prostheses.

Then just when you think it's all over you get the inevitable mad-question-at-the-end.

Q. But if robots did take over the world, what would we call them?

A. I really don't think robots are going to take over the world. 

Q. (More insistently this time) Yes, but if they did. What would we call them?

A. No, they really aren't going to take over the world.

Q. (Even more insistently) But what if they did? What would we call them?

Then you make a fool of yourself on the radio by wearily saying 'evil robot master' or somesuch nonsense, thus eliciting the triumphal response from Xane and his co-presenter: Aha! See, the professor says so. Robots really are going to take over the world.

Some really interesting Big Questions

As reported in my previous two blog entries How and Why do we have Culture?, and What do Aliens look like?, I've become involved in National Science Week, a major part of which has been structured around Big Questions. I've had some fun the last few days responding to some of the big questions - which are really good. Here are the questions and responses I've made so far:

When will people invent robots to fight in wars?

Could you create a robot with a mind of its own?

Can we invent a robot that will do everything for you?

Will the human brain ever be capable of understanding itself?

What actually is Intelligence? Do we understand it?

Is it possible that AI technology may get out of control?

What do Aliens look like?

Amazing meeting yesterday afternoon at the Science Museum. Here's the story: the British Association for the Advancement of Science (BA) has been asking for science questions via their web pages for awhile, in advance of Science Week, which is 7-16 March. A question that keeps coming up is "what do aliens look like?" so, to address that question, the BA pulled together a small panel which met yesterday. Our brief was to come up with some plausible alien life forms that can be visually presented during Science Week. The keyword here is plausible. It would be easy to pluck super-exotic aliens from the rich fauna of SF but then very difficult to explain the science. Of course, the fictional evolutionary science, or biochemistry, or ecosystems of even plausible aliens is going to have gaping holes, but we were tasked with trying to minimise those.

So, what did we come up with..? I can't say now but all will, I hope, be revealed during Science Week (and in this blog, then). ...and here is the press release describing our life forms.


Visualisation by Julian Hume, Research Fellow at the Natural History Museum/University of Portsmouth.

Blogging the Robot Bloggers

Here at @Bristol Walking with Robots is running a 3-day workshop for students and researchers in robotics, artificial intelligence and animatronics. It's a kind of masterclass whose objective is to train those students and researchers in science communication, with the hope that they'll be motivated to get involved in public engagement. I'm not going to talk about the training workshop here because it's described elsewhere in both a recent UWE press release Making Science Fun for Everyone and on EPSRC grants on the web here.

What I want to blog about here are the robot bloggers on wwrobots.wordpress.com.

The workshop has four streams with about a quarter of the students signing up for each. One of those streams is New Media, which is training its group in online reporting. Here is picture of the online newsroom.

These students have been tasked with publishing stories from the other three groups. Remarkably, the blog was up and running by mid-morning Monday and has provided a more-or-less real-time record of the workshop since then. The newsroom has been busy the whole time, but never more so than right now. This afternoon the whole workshop has had an amazing opportunity to put their activities to the test on the floor of @Bristol, and since this is the half-term holidays it's pretty busy out there (to put it mildly). Our robot bloggers have been out on the floor too, recording with still photos, video and text, the extraordinary excitement of the interaction between our students, their robotics, AI and animatronics activities, and the children and families. Scroll down wwrobots and you'll quickly get a sense of that excitement.

Of course I'm focussing on just one aspect of the workshop but it was, for me, perhaps the most surprising. Firstly, by opening my eyes to the potential for Web 2.0 media to provide - in effect - real time interactive reporting; a kind of worldwide outside broadcast. It seems to me that, with this approach, there is remarkable potential to enhance and extend the reach of many kinds of public engagement or science communication.

But secondly and even more significantly here, our robot bloggers bound together the whole workshop in an altogether unexpected and enriching way.

Ecobots at the Dana

Great evening at the Dana Centre Tuesday. A public debate/discussion called Techno Bodies - Hybrid Life? "What counts as a hybrid life form and how it affects you."

My contribution was to lead a discussion about the lab's Ecobots - starting with the Slugbot, then Ecobots I and II (famously fly eating robots powered by Microbial Fuel Cells), a little about what's next - Ecobot III - and to speculate about possible future applications for these hybrid-life robots. Hybrid life..? I'd never thought of these robots as hybrid life before but I guess the marrying of bio-chemical processes with plastic, metal and silicon does blur the boundaries.

Here's a picture of the Ecobot II, built by colleagues Ioannis Ieropoulos, Ian Horsfield, Chris Melhuish and John Greenman. Remarkably this robot runs for about 12 days on just 8 dead flies.

I was going to blog here about the various interesting questions that came up in discussion, but I don't need to because SciencePunk has done it already, so go here for a great summary.

The future doesn't just happen, we must own it

Had a remarkable couple of days last week. Walking with Robots (WWR), the Royal Academy of Engineering (RAE) and the London Engineering Project jointly ran a pilot Young Peoples' Visions Conference. The aim of the 2 day event was to give an opportunity for around 20 young adults (age 16-18) to "explore visions of their future and the part robots will play" in that future.

For me the event was important because it takes Walking with Robots into a new form of dialogue. At WWR events and activities I have been privileged to engage with many children, teenagers and adults, over the past year and I increasingly have a sense that our children, in particular, believe that the future is nothing to do with them. That technology is something that happens, or is imposed from outside and that they are merely passive consumers or targets for that technology. In this conference we really tried to change that view. It was wonderful to see the group change from - at the beginning - seeing this as 2 days out of college to - in the end - all being deeply engaged in the dialogue. I got a real sense of them feeling empowered and that their considered opinions are important - not least because those opinions will be published by the RAE and send to policymakers. In other words that they do have a say in their own technological futures.

An e-puck outing

At a little over 5 cm tall the e-pucks are remarkable little robots. Here is a picture from the web pages of supplier and all round good people at Cyberbotics. Our e-pucks got their first outing at the Brighton Science Festival's Big Science Sunday, on February 18th (and let me pay tribute to festival organiser Richard). A small pack of 4 or 5 e-pucks in a table top arena proved to be a compelling attraction for kids of all ages. A great talking point that allowed us to pontificate about everything from ants and swarm intelligence to the future of robots in society. Here is a picture with my colleague Claire Rocks in mid-demonstration showing part of the arena with two of the e-pucks contrasting with the old Linuxbot on the left. It's amazing to think that the Linuxbot was state-of-the-art technology just 10 years ago. The e-pucks, with sound (microphones and speaker), vision (camera and LEDs), bluetooth radio, proximity sensors and accelerometer are astonishingly sensor-rich compared with the venerable Linuxbot and its generation.

Now the small size of the e-puck can be deceptive. A week or so before the Brighton gig I thought I would try and code up some new swarm behaviours for the robots. "Little robot - how hard can it be", I thought to myself as I sat down to an evening's light coding. Boy was I mistaken. Within the e-puck's densely packed motherboard is a complex system which belies its small size. The Microchip dsPIC microcontroller at the heart of the e-puck has come a long way from the reduced-instruction-set and reduced-everything-else 8 bit PIC I programmed with a few dozen lines of assembler for our early Bismark robot 10 years ago. And in the e-puck the microcontroller is surrounded by some pretty complex sub-systems, such as the sound i/o codec, the camera and the bluetooth wireless. It's a complex system of systems. So, suitably humbled, I shall have to take some time to learn to program the e-puck*.

Just goes to show that with robots too, appearances can be deceptive.

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*Fortunately, and with remarkable generosity, the e-puck's designers have released the whole of the e-puck design - hardware and software - under an open source licence. So there are lots of function libraries and example programs to be explored.

And I should have mentioned that, in addition to public engagement, we're also evaluating the e-pucks as possible robots for our new Artificial Culture project. More blogs about this in due course.