Paul E. Baxter

A new start in Lincoln

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 13 Apr 2016 09:02:00 +0000

The past few months have been busy - I attended the Human-Robot Interaction conference in Christchurch (New Zealand), and then I packed up and left Plymouth, after six (near enough) very happy and relatively productive years with Tony Belpaeme's HRI group.

Now, I have joined the University of Lincoln (U.K.) as a lecturer (I'm not sure, but it's supposedly similar to a US/rest of the world Assistant Prof, but permanent rather than tenure-track...) in the School of Computer Science. I'm also a member of the Lincoln Centre for Autonomous Systems, which is a relatively large research group covering a range of (you guessed it) autonomous robotic systems, human-robot interaction/collaboration, and bio-inspired machine vision. It's an exciting place to join - the School and the research group are expanding rapidly both in terms of student numbers and research projects/income, and we're due to move into a new purpose-built building over the next year (I'm moving in the next few weeks...).

So, what are my plans for the future? Broadly speaking, to research and teach, or to teach and research, whichever way you choose to look at it. In terms of research, I intend to continue my general line of research involving the combination of cognitive/developmental robotics and social human-robot interaction. It's going to a little while before I get the things in my head up and running in the real world, but hopefully not too long.

An exciting, and yet fairly daunting time for me - learning a new place, new colleagues, new procedures. However, I'm looking forward to it! Apparently this is my 200th post on this blog. Apt perhaps that this is a new start.

2nd Workshop on Cognitive Architectures for Social Human-Robot Interaction

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 12 Jan 2016 13:35:00 +0000

In a follow-up to the first iteration of the workshop, I'm organising the next version of the workshop on Cognitive Architectures for Social HRI (with Greg Trafton and Severin Lemaignan). It will take place immediately before the International conference on Human-Robot Interaction, in Christchurch (New Zealand), on Monday the 7th of March 2016.

You can find all the necessary details on the workshop website.

The focus this time will specifically be on how social interaction (between robots and humans in particular, but not necessarily exclusively) can be supported by cognitive architectures - and what functions and mechanisms are required for this. To this end, we asking that all authors answer a set of six specific questions in their submissions, to provide a basis for comparison, and to initiate discussions as the workshop.

I hope to see you there!

New Frontiers of HRI Symposium CfP

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 17 Dec 2015 15:05:00 +0000

For the second year running, I'm involved in the organisation of the 5th Symposium on New Frontiers in Human-Robot Interaction, which will be held as part of the AISB convention on the 5th and 6th of April 2016, in Sheffield (U.K.). It's a very nice little event that has a strong emphasis on discussion, and so a very nice venue for meeting people, exchanging thoughts, and getting new ideas to inform your research.

So come and join us there!

All details are on the symposium submission page, but in the meantime, feel free to contact me or one of the other oganisers (Maha Salem, Astrid Weiss, and Kerstin Dautenhahn). Oh, and the submission deadline for papers is Monday the 11th of January, so get writing!

Recent Social Robotics Conferences

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 05 Nov 2015 15:50:00 +0000

In the past couple of weeks, I've been fortunate enough to attend a couple of conferences concerned with social robotics - one of the main foci of my research work. Attending conferences is always an enlightening experience for a range of reasons - catching up with familiar faces, meeting new ones, and getting new insights and perspectives on various aspects of my work.

The first of these was a new conference, called New Friends. It is generally focused on social (though not always) robots for therapy and education applications, though the majority of work seemed to be more related to therapy, with quite a number of practitioners present, in addition to the more robotics-oriented researchers and organisations. As the first iteration, it was relatively small, though I am intrigued to see how it develops: for now, the second edition has been arranged to take place in Barcelona next year. I presented a short paper on some ongoing work I'm conducting on the potential use of touchscreens to characterise behaviour of children with ASD as they interact with a robot. If you're interested, you can find the paper here (paper number 27 in the oral sessions section). The abstract is as follows:

Robots are finding increasing application in the domain of ASD therapy as they provide a number of advantageous properties such as replicability and controllable expressivity. In this abstract we introduce a role for touchscreens that act as mediating devices in therapeutic robot-child interactions. Informed by extensive work with neurotypical children in educational contexts, an initial study using a touchscreen mediator in support of robot assisted ASD therapy was conducted to examine the feasibility of this approach, in so doing demonstrating how this application provides a number of technical and potentially therapeutic advantages.

The second conference was the International Conference on Social Robotics, a far more established conference, this time in its seventh iteration. Bigger, but not by much, this conference does cover a wide range of topics and approaches, with nominally social robots being the common factor. Both the PhD students I co-supervise presented papers (which can be found here and here), which was great, and which seemed to be received well. I myself presented at the WONDER workshop some random thoughts squished into the semblance of a coherent argument about the wider implications of robots in classrooms. The paper can be found here, with the following abstract:

Robots are being increasingly used in schools by researchers keen to assess how they may be used to facilitate learning and provide support. Based on 15 school experiment visits at 9 different schools in the U.K., we outline our observations, specifically focusing on the broader implications of robots in the classroom primarily from the perspective of the teacher. We then outline the basis for future research considerations in HRI, centred around the three themes of pedagogy, methodology, and ethics. For further application of robotics to education, we suggest that these three themes need to form a central part of continuing research.

Social HRI Summer School: talk on experimental challenges

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 24 Aug 2015 20:58:00 +0000

I'm in Aland, Finland, at the moment taking part in the 2nd Summer School on Social Human-Robot Interaction (the first one took place in Cambridge in 2013). We're at the end of the first day, and what a fascinating first day it has been. Great talks from Tony Belpaeme, David Vernon and Yiannis Demiris. Between these I played support-act, and filled a slot in the programme with some background and observations on performing HRI experiments. The title/abstract of my talk:

"Experimental HRI: a wander through the challenges"
Running HRI experiments is difficult. Running HRI experiments outside of the lab, in the real world, can introduce even more difficulties. Having to deal with real people's quirks and foibles just adds to the challenges! However, there is so much of interest in doing just that: the development of better social robots, and to support the creation of robotic assistants and tools that can help people in their daily lives.
In this talk, an overview will be given of some of the constraints and trade-offs that may be encountered when implementing and running HRI experiments, but also of the opportunities that arise, and effects that can be taken advantage of. Examples from Child-Robot Interaction studies will serve to highlight these, including robots to help children learn, and running experiments in schools and hospitals.
Some of these issues may already be familiar or be intuitive, and will certainly be non-exhaustive, but the intention is to outline the basis of a toolkit of experimental HRI considerations that can be thrown at any attempts to release experiments into 'the wild'.

New Frontiers in Human-Robot Interaction CFP

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 15 Dec 2014 13:01:00 +0000

I'm involved in the organisation of a symposium that will be held in April 2015: New Frontiers in Human-Robot Interaction. Part of the AISB 2015 convention in Canterbury (U.K.), this symposium seeks to bring together HRI researchers to present and discuss their work in the context of ongoing and emerging challenges in the field. It will be a two-day event, which will be held between the 20th and 22nd of April 2015 (the actual two days within that have yet to be confirmed).

In previous years there has been an emphasis on facilitating discussions on the various topics raised by the speakers, and this year is no different. There will be a couple of keynote talks, a range of talks based on accepted papers, and panel sessions - all interspersed with ample time to pick up and discuss the issues that come up. I went to the symposium last year, and found it an enjoyable and thought-provoking event. I therefore (somewhat predictably perhaps!) thoroughly recommend it.

We would be very happy to encourage anyone in the field to submit a paper - indeed, even those from outside the field if they have something interesting/relevant to say! Please see the submissions page for more instructions. And then when you would eventually like to submit a paper, then you can use our submission system (hosted by EasyChair).

Looking forward to seeing you at the symposium!

DREAM

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 23 Sep 2014 11:53:00 +0000

At the beginning of this month, I formally started work on the EU FP7 DREAM project (although the project itself started in April this year). Given that ALIZ-E finished at the end of August, this fit very well for me personally, as it means that I am able to stay in Plymouth. It is coordinated by the University of Skovde (Sweden), with Plymouth (PI Tony Belpaeme) as one of seven partners who between us cover a wide range of expertise. There are two standard robot platforms that will be used as part of the project: the Aldebaran Nao (with which I have plenty of experience in ALIZ-E), and Probo (a green soft-bodied and trunked robot developed by VUB), although the Nao will be the primary focus of development.

(From the nice new flashy project website) The DREAM project...

...will deliver the next generation robot-enhanced therapy (RET). It develops clinically relevant interactive capacities for social robots that can operate autonomously for limited periods under the supervision of a psychotherapist. DREAM will also provide policy guidelines to govern ethically compliant deployment of supervised autonomy RET. The core of the DREAM RET robot is its cognitive model which interprets sensory data (body movement and emotion appearance cues), uses these perceptions to assess the child’s behaviour by learning to map them to therapist-specific behavioural classes, and then learns to map these child behaviours to appropriate robot actions as specified by the therapists.

My work on this will be on the (robot) cognitive and behavioural aspects of this goal. While this is a slight departure from my memory-centred work in ALIZ-E, it remains in the context of child-robot interaction, retains a focus on application-focused development (though for autistic children rather than diabetic children), and maintains an emphasis on achieving autonomous operation (although in the context of supervised interactions). There is an exciting programme of aims and goals in place, and a very good group of partner institutions, so I'm looking forward to it!

AISB Symposium on New Frontiers in Human-Robot Interaction last week

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 06 Apr 2014 16:25:00 +0000

At the end of last week, I was at the AISB 2014 symposium on New Frontiers in HRI, held at Goldsmiths College, London. Held over two days (well, not quite full days...), it was modestly sized (around 30 on the first day, fewer on the second), but with plenty of time given over to discussion, it was a good size to have the majority of people engage in talking and discussing with one another. The range of topics was quite eclectic (within the HRI theme of course), but there were enough people with wide enough interests/experience to keep the discussion going to greater extent than I was expecting - sometimes, I find that scheduled discussions fall a bit flat with a few too many awkward silences, but that wasn't the case here.

I gave a little overview of my work on applying a memory-centred cognition perspective to social human-robot interaction. I don't think I did particularly well at summarising the particular approach I take, but reckon I at least managed to get across some of the broad ideas involved. Seeing as my starting point is relatively uncontroversial (my assertion that memory is in some way involved in all aspects of human-robot interaction - indeed any social interaction), this was what I hoped. In any case, I tried to make a clear distinction between the the theoretical framework I was proposing, and the actual computation model I have developed to start to explore this question. The reason for this is that I know there are flaws in my implementation (as a model, this is in principle inevitable), but I didn't want people to dismiss the underlying idea as a consequence of this. The general panel discussion afterwards was mostly centred on the role of emotion in HRI (which was a fascinating discussion), but there was a little on these memory-centred ideas too, in which I tried to reinforce the theory rather than my implementation of it (who knows how successfully!).

Elsewhere in the symposium, the one general AISB keynote lecture I went to was given by Humberto Maturana. While it was given over skype (bit too far for him to come over in person...), it was still great to hear him speak in (virtual) person, as someone whose ideas had been such a profound influence on multiple fields of research, and of course my own. It was quite a wide-ranging talk, encompassing many different fields, but all tied together with the central theme of autopoiesis for which he is known. He structured this around four man questions: (1) what kind of systems are robots; (2) what kind of systems are living systems; (3) how does the nervous system operate; and (4) how do we operate as self-conscious beings? The result was an eclectic mix of topics (from life and death, to language, to ethics, and more besides), but which still maintained a coherency that I could follow (as far as I could understand at least!).

Humberto Maturana giving one of the AISB 2014 plenary talks over Skype.

Finally, just a quick note on the workshop I organised last month at the HRI conference with Greg Trafton on Cognitive Architectures for HRI. It was very well subscribed to (over 30 people for the session, which compared very favourably to other workshops running simultaneously), which was more than we were expecting. The invited speakers (Yiannis Demiris, Matthias Scheutz, and Angelo Cangelosi) provided a very good structure, covering a range of topics and perspectives that (according to the various comments from people afterwards) were engaging and indeed appreciated in terms of providing a different take that some were familiar with. Indeed, this also proved to be one of the drawbacks to the workshop: given the half day (and a few little technical issues...) we didn't have the time for discussions of any great length. I take it as a good sign though that people were dissapointed by this, and is certainly something that could be rectified if we were to organise another one.

HRI 2014 Workshop on Cognitive Architectures for Human-Robot Interaction

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 20 Dec 2013 09:25:00 +0000

I am co-organising a half-day workshop at the 9th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction next year (HRI'14), that will be held on the 3rd of March 2014 in Bielefeld, Germany. If you have any interest in this topic, or even would just like to find out more, please consider joining us! We have intended that this will be an inclusive event, with a high discussion content, and an emphasis on dissemination of ideas that will hopefully influence ongoing (social) Human-Robot Interaction research.

I've been interested in cognitive systems, cognitive robotics and cognitive architectures for a while now as my interest (and subsequent research) is in exploring general principles of cognition/intelligence, both for understanding natural systems and for the development of 'better' robotic systems (to test theories and accomplish tasks). I think that Human-Robot Interaction provides a fascinating context to explore cognitive architectures, as it provides a very different set of challenges to theory and implementation than have typically been considered. Hence the workshop!

*******************************************************************
CALL FOR WORKSHOP SUBMISSIONS AND PARTICIPATION

HRI 2014 Workshop on Cognitive Architectures for Human-Robot Interaction

Monday 3rd March, 2014 (Bielefeld, Germany)

http://www.tech.plym.ac.uk/socce/staff/paulbaxter/cogarch4hri/

*******************************************************************

IMPORTANT DATES
***************
** Submission deadline: Friday 10th January, 2014
** Notification of acceptance: Monday 20th January, 2014
** Final (accepted) submission: Friday 7th February, 2014
** Workshop: Monday 3rd March, 2014 (half day)

DESCRIPTION
***********
Cognitive Architectures are constructs (encompassing both theory and models) that seek to account for cognition (over multiple timescales) using a set of domain-general structures and mechanisms. Typically inspired by human cognition, the emphasis is on deriving a set of principles of operation not constrained to a specific task or context. This therefore presents a holistic perspective: it forces the system designer to initially take a step back from diving into computational mechanisms and consider what sort of functionality needs to be present, and how this relates to other cognitive competencies. Thus the very process of applying such an approach to HRI may yield benefits, such as the integration of evidence from the human sciences in a principled manner, the facilitation of comparison of different systems (abstracting away from specific computational algorithms), and as a more principled manner to verify and refine the resultant autonomous systems.

For HRI, such an approach to building autonomous systems based on Cognitive Architecture, 'cognitive integration', would emphasise first those aspects of behaviour that are common across domains, before applying these to specific interaction contexts for evaluation. Furthermore, given inspiration from human cognition, it can also inherently take into account the behaviour of the humans with which the system should interact, with the intricacies and sub-optimality that this entails.

To date, there have been relatively few efforts to apply such ideas to the context of HRI in a structured manner. The aim of this workshop is therefore to provide a forum to discuss the reasons and potential for the application of Cognitive Architectures to autonomous HRI systems. It is expected that by attending this workshop and engaging in the discussions, participants will gain further insight into how a consideration of Cognitive Architectures complements the development of autonomous social robots, and contribute to the cross-fertilization of ideas in this exciting area.

SUBMISSION AND PARTICIPATION
****************************
Contributions are sought from all who are interested in participation. A light-touch review process will be applied to check for relevance - the emphasis of the workshop is on inclusion, discussion and dissemination. Prior to the workshop, the organizers will integrate these into a list a perspectives that will form the basis for the discussions.

Please prepare a 2-page position paper on your research-informed perspective on cognitive architectures for human-robot interaction (particularly social). The HRI template should be used for this submission (ACM SIG Proceedings). Submissions should be sent to: paul.baxter(a)plymouth.ac.uk All accepted position papers will be archived on the workshop website.

ORGANISERS AND CONTACT
**********************
** Paul Baxter (Plymouth University, U.K.) and Greg Trafton (Naval Research Laboratory, USA)
** Email: paul.baxter(a)plymouth.ac.uk

Why Robots for Children need to be Social...

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 09 Dec 2013 17:05:00 +0000

...well, here's one reason anyway...

(for the full comic, go to the website)

Cognitive Architecture for Social Human-Robot Interaction

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 30 Aug 2013 09:08:00 +0000

It's now the last day of the summer school in Cambridge, and it's been a very interesting if packed week of talks, activities and discussions. Just what a summer school should be in my opinion.

I gave my little special session talk yesterday to a little group (all 25-30 of them, to whom I am grateful for not leaving when I invited them to do so towards the beginning of my talk*). It was an introductory overview of the application of cognitive architectures to the development of autonomous systems for social human-robot interaction. Here's the abstract I used to try and draw people in:

What is Cognitive Architecture and why is it important for HRI? The ongoing developments towards social companion robots raises questions of information integration, behavioural control, etc, in coordination and collaboration with humans. While introducing cognitive architecture, I will emphasise fundamental organisation and common operating principles, specifically based on inspiration from human cognition: learning from the agents with which the robots must socially interact. In this special interest session, these issues will be explored, taking in examples from existing architectures along the way. I would like to put forward the idea that a consideration of Social HRI from the perspective of cognitive architecture enables a different take on the design of social robots - one that emphasises holistic human-robot interacting systems. In doing so, the intention is to leave participants with more questions than are answered, in the hope that some of the issues raised find themselves being further developed in ongoing work.

It was only a short talk, and I intentionally focused on the motivations for wanting to do so, rather than trying to persuade people to use one particular approach or another (even refraining from mentioning my own views on the matter as much as possible). Nevertheless, we had some interesting little discussions, including one on the nature of organisation of behaviour: there were a few people who insisted that the classic "perception -> cognition -> action" pipeline model was the only thing that needed to be considered. While I respectfully disagreed (as does a great deal of the literature on robotics, enaction, active perception, embodied cognition, etc), it did remind me that this assumption does seem to be implicit in many different perspectives, whether cognitive architecture or not.

In any case: we've just had a great talk from Prof. Roger Moore (Uni Sheffield) on the motivation and basis for his mathematical model of the Uncanny Valley effect as very well known in the popular media. Well worth a look at the paper, as it has a number of fundamental consequences for the HRI domain.

* I always start my talks with the conclusion...

Summer School and Research Details

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 27 Aug 2013 12:04:00 +0000

The Summer School on Social Human-Robot Interaction is now in full swing! Great talks so far, and some really good hands-on sessions. Last night was a workshop given by Aardman Animations on building models with plasticine - brilliant fun, and a nice insight on how to give the illusion of life to inanimate objects, which is of course a goal of social robotics research!

...see #hrisummerschool on Twitter...

And in other news, I've finally started to update my Research Details page, on which I outline in a little more detail the general research themes I am interested in. Please wander along and have a look!

Summer School on Social Human-Robot Interaction

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 07:48:00 +0000

On the off-chance that there's anyone reading this who may be interested, but who hasn't heard this elsewhere (...), then I'd like to mention a research-oriented summer school on Social Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) that will take place this coming August at Cambridge University, U.K. from the the 26th to 30th of August 2013.

Organised primary under the purview of the project I am employed by (ALIZ-E), and also involving the Accompany project, the aim of the school is to provide both theoretical background and practical skills to support researchers in the area of Social HRI. In stating 'social' the emphasis is moved away from industrial robots (or robots in manufacturing/automation contexts), for which interaction with humans in also necessary, and towards the use of robots in contexts where those characteristics of human-human interaction are more important (for example, companion robots, education support, caring in hospital/home, etc).

The application process has started already, with the deadline for submitting applications on the 30th April. With support from the IEEE and EuCognition, there will be a limited number of scholarships available for participants.

There's a list of topics being covered now available on the conference website, with the programme yet to be finalised. A little taster though:

The summer school will have a wide-ranging programme of lectures, discussions and hands-on ateliers on topics such as social signal processing, robotics and autism, child-robot interaction, multi-modal communication, natural language interaction, smart environments, robot assisted therapy, interaction design for robots, tools and technologies, and ethics. The school is participants who seek background and hands-on experience in the interdisciplinary science and technology supporting social human-robot interaction.

I'll be doing a little something on Cognitive Architecture for Social HRI at the school, and so emphasising aspects of cognitive processing and organisation for robot control and behaviour relevant (or at least of interest) to social interaction. Which is of course a fascinating subject that you would be foolish to miss :-p

Robotics and Legal Responsibility

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 01:40:00 +0000

With robotic devices increasingly prevalent in 'real life', and the prospect of ever more autonomous robots, there is a need for legislation to be updated to reflect the changing conditions. An article I read on Wired a few days ago reminded of an EU project that started last year: RoboLaw, which has the aim of exploring how emerging robotics technologies influence and are affected by the law (see also this, which I've just come across). This issue is brought into sharper focus in the case of something going wrong, where the question of responsibility arises. For instance, there's been a lot going around in recent months on the autonomous car efforts of Google and others. If there were to be a crash, who would take the blame? Would it be the manufacturer in the obvious absence of driver error, or perhaps those responsible for road/signalling maintenance? Indeed, would the technically possible autonomy be scaled back to maintain direct human oversight in order to mitigate the potential legal minefield? While there have been some legislative attempts to address this, there clearly is a way to go.

Individual researchers actually working on the supporting technologies have increasingly considered the implications, and potential implications, of their own field of research, typically focusing on the ethics involved in the (proposed) applications. Indeed, a couple of years ago now, I wrote something on the consequences of my ongoing work on memory in the context of human-robot interaction, though my effort was more directed at the possible legal implications of memory system technologies than ethics. The paper considered the implications of new computational means of providing the function of memory (specifically the use of sub-symbolic networks). It specifically proposed that as a consequence of the details of the technologies potentially used, current privacy legislation may not be suitable to account for new generations of autonomous social robots.

In my view, this is a small example of a wider need to consider the actual technologies in (proposed) use when considering legislative requirements - hence a need for the scientific/engineering community to engage with the legislative process (and therefore vice versa). However, in order for this to be effected, I feel that it would be beneficial to have common perspective or approach on the part of the researchers, which even if not unified is at least coherent. With one of the main deliverables of the project intended to be a white paper recommending regulatory guidelines to European legislators, this project has the potential to help provide this.

Review of "How to Build a Bionic Man"

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 23:47:00 +0000

This was a Channel 4 documentary on a week or two ago (I believe it's still viewable for those based in the U.K.) - I wasn't going to write a review of it at first. But then today, I noticed that there was a review of it on the IEEE Robotics and Automation blog.

My first opinions of the documentary were unrelentingly poor. As a programme as a whole, I thought it was awful (the mostly inane voice-over commentary didn't help) - the thread that supposedly holds this together is the goal "...to create the worlds first bionic man, that can get off the slab and walk among us" (approx 1:10 minutes in). In terms of robotics it was dire: misleading, decidedly not state of the art, and poorly executed (as is typical for programmes such as this, it both over and understates the current state-of-the-art in robotics). As for 'building a bionic man', it was rather pathetic, an excuse to get in the dodgy sci-fi to make it more 'popular', and ending up with sensationalist nonsense. I can well imagine a director throughout in the background shouting "ham it up for the camera!" rather a lot...

However, the positive I did draw out of it (and this is what the IEEE blog post reminded me of) was that as a commentary on synthetic body parts, there is much of interest. The overview of the technologies both available and under development for the replacement of a whole host of limbs (in the news again recently) and internal organs was genuinely interesting, and quite well done. I thought the synthetic heart was particularly striking for instance.

The role of Bertolt Meyer was to add the personal touch to the tech-talk. For this, apart from the seemingly over-egged reaction to seeing a copy of his face on the resulting machine and the bit where he is pretending to talk to a plastic skull (though for all I know these were genuine reactions...), he was an ideal foil, being the user (possibly not the right phrase here) of a prosthetic hand himself. The snippets of interviews with the developers of the respective protheses were informative and realistic (i.e. didn't seem to be creatively edited in a way that detracted from the real technological advances made by focusing on the trivial or controversial).

It's a shame that the programme seems so poorly executed (and it is the programme I have a problem with), as there's lots of really great stuff that's been put together that doesn't, in my view, get the credit and clarity it deserves. And I can't imagine that the guys at Shadow Robot are particularly enamored at being portrayed as the stereotypical mad scientist loons confined to a basement, as they do genuinely great work (their hand is really quite impressive, and being used in a number of research endeavors around the world).

Sorry for somewhat rant-ish nature of that - I was possibly a little harsh in places, but as may be apparent, I don't think much of this documentary. I think that it mixes concepts from robotics, artificial intelligence and prosthetics research in a way that actually detracts from each, and is done from the perspective of entertainment under the guise of being informative.

The work of von Foerster: summary of a summary

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 14 Oct 2012 23:28:00 +0000

The academic work of Heinz von Foerster was, and remains, highly influential in a number of disciplines, namely due to the pervasive implications of his distinction between first and second order cybernetics (and its antecedent ideas). Where first order cybernetics may be simply described as the study of feedback systems by observation, second-order cybernetics extends this observation of a system to incorporate the observer itself: it is reflexive in that the observation of the feedback system is itself a feedback system to be explained. While I am familiar with this concept, I am not particularly familiar with the body of work produced by von Foerster to instantiate this concept, although I have encountered numerous references to him, particularly when the subject is related to enactivism.

In 2003, Bernard Scott republished a summary of von Foersters' work which he originally published in 1979. The original paper was published just a few years after the official retirement of von Foerster, who apparently (as many an academic has before and since) continued his work for many subsequent years. It serves as a summary of the breadth of work and its contribution, and was republished partly in recognition of the continuing, and expanding, influence it exerts. This post is a very brief summary of this summary paper.

In general terms, von Foerster views on computation and cognition seem to be inherently integrated, holistic, proposing dynamic interactions between the micro, the macro and the global. This view thus contrasts with functional models of cognitive processes which in their nature, can only be static snapshots of the dynamic interactions at play: cf autopoietic theory that extends this notion with the principles of self-reconstitution and organisational closure. Particularly, he emphasises the necessity of considering perception, cognition and memory as indivisible aspects of a complete integrated cognitive system, cf enactivism.

With this consideration as a consistent thread, four primary phases in the development of von Foersters' research are identified. Firstly is his consideration of large molecules as the basis for biological computation, rather than the prevailing focus on neural networks, and that 'forms' of computation underlie all computational systems. Secondly is the exploration of self-organisation, and the reconciliation of organisation with the potential paradox of self-reference. In this sense, a system that increases in order (organisation) requires that its observer adapts its frame-of-reference to incorporate this: if this were not required of the observer, then the system can not be regarded as self-organising. The resulting infinite recursion provides an account of the conditions necessary for social communication and interaction: a consequence of the second order cybernetics. Thirdly is a focus on the nature of memory as being key to understanding cognition and consciousness. Returning to the notion of holistic cognition described above, this is in contrast to the perspective of memory as a static storage mechanism which was prevalent among behaviourist psychologists, and still remains prevalent in the work of designers of synthetic cognitive models and architectures (the countering of which is a key theme of my own research). The fourth and final identified phase (of the original 1979 paper that is) is the formalisation of the concept of self-referential systems and analysis as recursive computation, and the extension of this to apply also to the observer.

The threads of self reference and a holistic perspective have, as noted above, had a wide influence, and continue to do so. I did not realise before that Maturana and Varela's well known formulation of autopoiesis was done at the lab that von Foerster led (the Biological Computing Laboratory, University of Illinois). The relationship is of course clear now that I know about it (!): autopoiesis builds upon the self-reference and holism with self-reconstitution and organisational closure to form a fully reflexive theory. Similarly, enactivism seems to owe much to von Foersters' influence, with its integrated consideration of agent and environment, embodiment and cognition - a theme that has become increasing prevalent in recent years among those working on cognitive robotics with a more theoretical perspective - extending to the consideration of social behaviour. In all, the principle of second-order cybernetics and the theoretical perspectives upon which it is based remain important in the consideration of cognition and human behaviour despite its seemingly abstract theoretical nature, and Heinz von Foerster played a rather prominent role in providing its underpinnings.

Some of the 'buzzwords' raised in the summary of von Foersters' research which carry through as such today (among others - and I use the term buzzwords without any pejorative intent, merely as a 'note-to-self'):
- second order cybernetics
- self-organisation
- the holistic nature of cognition (developed as enactivism)

Paper reference:
Scott, B. (2003), "Heinz von Foerster - an appreciation (revisited)", Cybernetics and Human Knowing, 10(3/4), pp137-149

Uncertainty in Science

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 12 Jul 2012 21:52:00 +0000

Just came across an interesting article on Wired: Science today. Written by Stuart Firenstein, a biological scientist and active in the public understanding of science. It's on how uncertainty and doubt are actually good things, fundamental drivers of the scientific method; and not something to be brushed under the carpet or made out to indicate complete certainty or ignorance as it frequently is by politicians and activists on all sides of a politically charge argument, or jumped on by the media (e.g. the MMR jab fiasco a few years ago) .

Taking the hot topic (hehe...) of of global warming as an example, Firenstein notes that the lack of clear-cut, unambiguous answers isn't an indication that science cannot provide anything of utility in the debate, and should not be discarded as a result: " Revision is a victory in science, and that is precisely what makes it so powerful." . If science is the search for knowledge, then what is often overlooked is that newly acquired knowledge is a means for forming and framing new questions; each step is just that, and not a certain end in itself.

A little extract:
"We live in a complex world that depends on sophisticated scientific knowledge. That knowledge isn’t perfect and we must learn to abide by some ignorance and appreciate that while science is not complete it remains the single best method humans have ever devised for empirically understanding the way things work."
From http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/07/firestein-science-doubt/

I'm a good Scientist

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 28 Jun 2012 08:44:00 +0000

I must be a Good Scientist, as I make lots of mistakes...

[Image attribution: I honestly can't remember where I got this from]

Book: "Dreaming in Code"

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 19:34:00 +0000

Cover of "Dreaming in Code",
by Scott Rosenberg

As I mentioned previously, I have been reading a book on programming called "Dreaming in Code" (by S. Rosenberg, full ref may be found below). Seeing as I've just finished it now, I thought I would share a few brief thoughts on it. In all, I enjoyed reading it. It wasn't what I was expecting, and I read it relatively slowly, over the past month, reading a half-to-full chapter at a time. In all, whilst it is about programming, with a particular emphasis on large projects/programmes, it covers history, basic software engineering concepts, and the story of a single open-source development project in a mixed-up sort of way, but a way which still managed to keep my attention (i.e. I didn't have to expend too much effort in picking the book back up after leaving it for a few days).

In going through the development (evolution is perhaps a better word) of an open-source software project - a PIM called Chandler - a number of general software development issues are come across and discussed in the context of historical software engineering developments. This is what I particularly liked about it - the central story of a particular software development project, with the deeper consideration and historical context for some of the central features of its ongoing work, both technical, and personal. And this is what seems to persistently emerge as a fundamental confounding factor of software development: the computer is as precise as could be wished for, but those telling it what to do are decidedly not so (an observation so familiar to anyone who has written, or attempted to write, any piece of code).

Having said this, unlike some other reviews, I found the chapter dedicated to methods (chapter 9) to be a bit too contrived and preachy - particularly given the easy-going style of the rest of the book. This isn't to say the subject matter is out of place: it goes through . I think it's no coincidence that this chapter seems to depart furthest from the Chandler story narrative, a form that suited the rest of the book so well. I suppose it depends on your perspective: I enjoyed the Chandler story, with it providing the context for delves into general software engineering principles and history, so when this context fell away in chapter 9, I was left missing it.

So, would I recommend reading this? I think it depends (which is a cop-out of course...). I'm technically minded, I write code regularly, but I'm not a software engineer, and I've had no real prior knowledge of how big software projects are run. As such, the book provides a little glimpse of this. I think that while it would be too much to say that this book provides a full coverage of software development techniques by means of little examples, it does provide enough that I learned something from it. If, however, you have already been embedded within a formal software development setting, then I don't think you will gain anything new by reading this - apart from confirmation that software development (closed-, open- source of otherwise) is hard work, with many pitfalls, and having more money to do something actually seems to make it even more difficult. This of course could be reason enough though! For me though, I enjoyed reading the book, for the little asides to the main story as much as anything. However, what is obviously minimally required is some form of interest in the way computers are cajoled to do our (collective) bidding.

It seems as though since the book was written, Chandler has fallen to the very criticisms that the book makes of closed-source, commercial software developments: closed development, lack of user testing, and changing specifications (among others). However, despite the departure of the books seemingly main protagonist, Mitch Kapor, Chandler does seem to still be going, with the 1.0 release the focus of so much discussion in the book, but with not too much activity (e.g. planning pages on project wiki last updated in 2008, and project blog not updated since 2009...).

Scott Rosenberg (2007), "Dreaming in Code", Crown Publishing, ISBN: 978-1400082469. Website accompanying the book is here.

World's smallest frog discovered

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 20:31:00 +0000

The story on the BBC News website that the world's smallest frog has been discovered. Really? Wow!

Smallest frog? Picture from the BBC News story.

/rant

No!! Have they taken a measurement and not bothered to look up the standard measurements of other frogs? Are they now certain that there are no more species of frog that could ever be found? Perhaps even they have discovered some theoretical reason why a frog could never possibly be smaller? Maybe I'm being overly pedantic, but surely it should be (along the lines of) "a new species of frog has been discovered, which is now the smallest known species of frog". I doubt such a claim would be in a peer reviewed paper, so maybe this is just sloppy wording to maximise 'impact' on the website...

/endrant

CFP: AAAI'12 special track on Cognitive Systems

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 02:22:00 +0000

At the 26th AAAI conference this year (in Toronto, Canada) there will be a special track on Cognitive Systems:

In an attempt to return to the original goals of artificial intelligence and cognitive science, this special track invites papers in human-level intelligence, integrated intelligent systems, cognitive architectures, situated embodied cognition, and related areas that aim to explain intelligence in computational terms and reproduce a range of human cognitive abilities in computational artifacts. The track will focus on various cognitive capabilities in the context of artificial cognitive systems, including the following, as well as other related integrated cognitive functions.

There are a number of other special tracks too, in addition to the main technical programme, among which are the intriguingly titled "computational sustainability and artificial intelligence", and more conventional "robotics". In any case, the deadline for submissions is not far off: January 20th 2012.

MATLAB alternatives (free, of course...)

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 00:33:00 +0000

I don't use MATLAB very much at the moment, or even in recent years. Production of a couple of graphs perhaps, maybe a little data processing, but nothing that can't really be done using any other piece of software available to me (MS Excel, LO Calc, or a bit of my own code). I have used MATLAB extensively in the past, mostly Simulink though, for some signal processing and control stuff, so know it can be a very useful tool. However, given my current MATLAB inactivity, and that where I work doesn't have an endless supply of licenses for research (and these are fairly expensive as you may have noticed...), it seems that my occasional use can be easily covered by the open-source/freeware.

The main options seem to be Octave and SciLab. Both are open-source and free, and can be used in Linux, Windows or MacOS (I like cross-platform compatibility...). As open-source 'versions' of MATLAB, both of have at least some degree of compatibility with it. Although there seems to be some disagreement on which is closest to full MATLAB compatibility, from what I've read while only briefly looking a little further into it, Octave tries to maintain the same syntax (so aiming for m-file compatibility, and treating any deviations from this as bugs), whereas SciLab offers a tool for conversion. I think that a similarity to MATLAB in terms of functionality and syntax is beneficial because of its pervasive nature, and the subsequent opportunity to share resources.

In terms of a comparison between these two in a more computationally technical sense (comparison of calculations, plotting and syntax with MATLAB), see this tech report, which also mentions another possible candidate too - FreeMat. This report concludes that Octave does actually offer a viable alternative to MATLAB, with limitations found in both SciLab and FreeMat.

Why did I write a post on this? Mostly just because I want a record of these links for myself, but partly because hopefully someone else will find this useful too.

Software Quality

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 00:18:00 +0000

I do not regard myself as a software engineer. Sure, I 'do' programming (usually with some C-based language if you're interested), but such programming is to implement some functionality that I want or need for some purpose - to implement a model or a data processing tool for instance - which has been for my own use. As such, there has been minimal effort put into inherent extend-ability or modalarisation of my code. I've always paid relatively good attention to code commenting and some flexibility of use (personal, that is), but that mainly stems from my inability to remember implementational details rather than some grand vision of code reuse. I've also never really been bothered about efficiency or speed. I think this stems from the fact that when an undergrad, I did some programming with some fairly limited processors, on which resources (particularly memory) were limited and had to be at least considered, if not actively managed - moving from those things to a proper desktop led me to stop worrying about resources to the extent that I stopped even considering them. I would, and do, implement code in the way that it looked like it worked in my head, not in a way that would have been particularly efficient either in terms of computational resources or (my) time: another side-effect of the lack of memory on my part, I could look back on my code and almost reconstruct my line of thought. In summary, I was more a hacker than a crafter of code - it was more important what the stuff did and how it corresponded to the things swirling in my head, than how it looked on the screen, or how it actually worked. And I thought that this was all that was required, and was to be honest a little smug in thinking so.

Sometimes I feel that this is what programming actually is... Image from here.

However, in more recent times, my programming has had a number of additional constraints imposed. These are probably so fundamental to most normal people (by which I mean most programmers and software engineers), that me mentioning them may border on the ridiculous, but I think that they are probably not to your bog-standard academic-type, like me. It basically boils down to a simple fact: that there are other people out there, and that under certain circumstances, they might actually need to use/modify your code, or collaborate with you on this code. This process has only relatively recently begun to directly affect me and my work, since a little way into starting as part of the ALIZ-E project, but it's one that I am increasingly having to take into account, and one that I seemingly find myself a little reluctant to. Basically, I would say that the idea is that putting the effort into those aspects of software development that are not necessarily directly related to the desired functionality, but to more general infrastructure and usability from the perspective of the programmer (as well as the notional user of course), is very beneficial in the long run. Put like that, it seems sensible. But it's not particularly obvious when you're actually trying to throw together something that works in the face of a deadline. At least it didn't to me.

Anyway, this issue was raised in my mind over the past week or two for two reasons: firstly, I noticed that a project colleague has put up (or updated?) a page on his website about software quality; secondly, I just happen to be reading a book (given to me by some very dear friends) about programming (which is far more interesting than it may sound, but that is I think for another post when I've finished reading the book...).

This project colleague is Marc Schroder, and he is at DFKI in Germany, and this is the page I am referring to. The first time I met him was at the first ALIZ-E software integration meeting, at which he kept talking about good programming practice, and good practice regarding implementation structures and methods. To be perfectly honest, I viewed a lot of this as programming idealism, and distracting from the task at hand: implementing a (complex) system that would do what we wanted. Speaking to him during one of the meeting intervals, I made the point to him my opinion that a lot of academic programmers were hackers like me - good at making code that did what we wanted, but not necessarily good software engineers. I have no doubt that he'd heard and experienced this before, and indeed he was probably rather exasperated at the situation with the academic-hacker-types like me. He, on the other hand, has a good deal of experience with not just good quality programming, but also of multi-party project management, of which I had no experience. So, he knows what is involved in making some software actually work in a collaborative environment in which the participants are remotely interacting.

From the description on his software quality page page, and the various evangelist-style talks he's given us in the project on good coding practice (and I don't mean this in a negative manner - just descriptive of the style that academic-types speak to each other on subject matters that deeply interest them...), I have subsequently expanded my list of coding requirements. Or at least, I've added them to my desiderata, and am trying to actually incorporate them into the stuff I normally do. The order is roughly in importance for me at the moment, and misses things out (from Marc's list at least) probably because I don't (yet!?) understand their necessity.

Error handling - as in properly, returning descriptions of what actually went wrong, so that you can figure it out, not just some way of not crashing the entire computer when something doesn't go to plan...
Test-driven development - I think I understand the main principles involved, but to be honest, the practical details of how this actually should be approached are still tantalisingly out of reach... The idea of it being something like a living specification that keeps up to date with the code, is an actually useful tool in verifying updates, and replaces (to a certain extent) an external body of documentation, seems like a good idea all round.
Refactoring - now this is something I have actually been doing for a while, though not for the efficiency aspects, but more for the matching of code operation to my internal cognitive machinations, and for some (limited) future flexibility (so I can easily change parameters and rerun for example)

I'd say that I now understand the necessity for these three things at least. And that I know that I need to apply it to my work as a fundamental feature rather than a mere after-thought. But I am also aware that this process has just begun for me, and that there is far more that I need to learn about testing regimes, interface definitions, etc, that are as yet just too unfamiliar to me. And yet there remains this vestigial resistance to such practice in favour of the hack-together-for-application methodology...

CFP: AISB Symposium on Computing and Philosophy

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 18:31:00 +0000

An upcoming event with which I have a minor involvement is the 4th incarnation of the AISB Symposium on Computing and Philosophy, which is due to take place in Birmingham, U.K., between the 2nd and 6th of July 2012. The AISB convention is this year being held in conjunction with the International Association of Computing And Philosophy (IACAP), and will mark the 100th anniversary of Alan Turing's birthday. There are 16 different symposia at this convention in all, all with varying emphases on the interaction between AI/Computing and Philosophy. For those of bent in that particular direction, there will be plenty to attract your attention!

An overview of the Symposium on Computing and Philosophy, from the website:

Turing’s famous question ‘can machines think?’ raises parallel questions about what it means to say of us humans that we think. More broadly, what does it mean to say that we are thinking beings? In this way we can see that Turing’s question about the potential of machines raises substantial questions about the nature of human identity. ‘If’, we might ask, ‘intelligent human behaviour could be successfully imitated, then what is there about our flesh and blood embodiment that need be regarded as exclusively essential to either intelligence or human identity?’. This and related questions come to the fore when we consider the way in which our involvement with and use of machines and technologies, as well as their involvement in us, is increasing and evolving. This is true of few more than those technologies that have a more intimate and developing role in our lives, such as implants and prosthetics (e.g. neuroprosthetics).

The Symposium will cover key areas relating to developments in implants and prosthetics, including:

How new developments in artificial intelligence (AI) / computational intelligence (CI) look set to develop implant technology (e.g. swarm intelligence for the control of smaller and smaller components)

Developments of implants and prosthetics for use in human, primate and non-primate animals

The nature of human identity and how implants may impact on it (involving both conceptual and ethical questions)

The identification of, and debate surrounding, distinctions drawn between improvement or repair (e.g. for medical reasons), and enhancement or “upgrading” (e.g. to improve performance) using implants/prosthetics

What role other emerging, and converging, technologies may have on the development of implants (e.g. nanotechnology or biotechnology)

But the story of identity does not end with human implants and neuroprosthetics. In the last decade, huge strides have been made in ‘animat’ devices. These are robotic machines with both active biological and artificial (e.g. electronic, mechanical or robotic) components. Recently one of the organisers of this symposium, Slawomir Nasuto, in partnership with colleagues Victor Becerra, Kevin Warwick and Ben Whalley, developed an autonomous robot (an animat) controlled by cultures of living neural cells, which in turn were directly coupled to the robot's actuators and sensory inputs. This work raises the question of whether such ‘animat’ devices (devices, for example, with all the flexibility and insight of intelligent natural systems) are constrained by the limits (e.g. those of Turing Machines) identified in classical a priori arguments regarding standard ‘computational systems’.

Both neuroprosthetic augmentation and animats may be considered as biotechnological hybrid systems. Although seemingly starting from very different sentient positions, the potential convergence in the relative amount and importance of biological and technological components in such systems raises the question of whether such convergence would be accompanied by a corresponding convergence of their respective teleological capacities; and what indeed the limits noted above could be.

For more information, see the symposium website. For those interested in submitting a paper, the deadline for submissions is the 1st of February 2012.

Me: films and robots

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 23:09:00 +0000

My first post in over a year, so lets start with something silly :-)

I'm sure that anyone who is working, or has worked, with robots has been influenced in some way (if not inspired) by some depiction in a work of fiction - most likely film - whether they choose to admit it or not (those who don't are probably lying). I'm quite happy to admit to this - and can point to two such robotic intelligent devices. What precisely about them gave rise to this influence I don't know - and I don't really want to deconstruct it in case it turns out to be ridiculous and/or trivial - but here they are nonetheless for you to assess.

Johnny 5 is alive!

The first one is the amazing - and actually fairly realistic (in terms of achievable mechanical complexity) - Johnny 5 from Short Circuit. I can't really say enough about this dude - I did really want one of the little mini-me's from the second film though! I can't really remember the first time I watched this, but I do know that over the many occasions I've watched the films I'm still drawn to it, despite the occasionally dodgy special effects (I'm thinking of the dancing)...

The second one is the intelligent space-ship/robot arm thing in the Flight of the Navigator - 'Max'. I'm not entirely if this is supposed to be AI robot, or alien-being-controlling-a-robot, but any device that can fly a spaceship, go manic, and time-travel is alright in my book. The single eye-on-an-arm-thing was a bit strange, though even with such a fairly simple setup, the array of emotional expression was really quite impressive.

(I've only just realised that both of these films were released in '86 - this is just coincidence, as I watched both on TV a number of years afterwards - I didn't watch them in the cinema or anything). I'm not sure sure these would be the choices of most people - and I'm not going to bring age into it - but they're mine :-)

/rant
Having said all that though, there is a bit of a cautionary note I think. As much as the portrayal of the robot in science fiction is of course hugely beneficial in terms of building and maintaining interest in these synthetic devices, I do wonder sometimes whether this actually has the long-term reverse effect: building expectations of what such devices can do, not just beyond that which is currently possible, but beyond that which is even probable as possible. In the end, would this just not turn people off when they realise that the real state-of-the-art is actually fairly mundane? Or that what people like me think of as really quite exciting in terms of development just pale in comparison with the vividly recreated imaginations of script writers and graphic designers? In the end, surely such levels of unfulfilled expectation will serve as a damper on funding initiatives (am thinking of potential career prospects here...!) - "but what you are trying to do isn't really exciting, they were talking about it in the '70s/'80's/'90's/etc...". Either that, or the reality drifts so far from expectation that most people don't understand what's going on, and you end up in the same place. But that is perhaps for another discussion, on public engagement with science...

Or maybe I'm reading far too much into all of this, and should really just sit back, relax, and enjoy the view...

/endrant