Orlando, FL — Start seeing robots as collaborators, not opponents, and nix the notion of evaluating them with people.
With help from demonstrations, anecdotes and movies, Kate Darling delivered that perspective throughout Wednesday’s Closing Keynote on the 2024 NSC Safety Congress & Expo. She additionally assured security professionals they’re forward of the curve.
Darling, an knowledgeable in social robotics and a analysis scientist on the Massachusetts Institute for Technology, asserted that “we could be investing in technology that helps people do a better job rather than trying to automate people away.” She then turned to the viewers and mentioned: “I know that a lot of technology in your industry is actually trying to do that, and that absolutely is what we need to be leaning into.”
She explored the idea of anthropomorphism – assigning human or private traits to an object, or humanization – all through her presentation.
The apply stays widespread as synthetic intelligence and robotics grow to be more and more widespread in workplaces and society.
Darling cited the statistic that greater than 80% of Roomba vacuum cleaner homeowners identify the equipment. She confirmed a 2015 video clip of a man kicking a robotic canine and famous that People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals – an animal rights group – obtained requests from the general public to intervene.
Waking and playfully dangling the tail of her lifelike pet PLEO robotic dinosaur, “Mr. Spaghetti,” Darling defined that anthropomorphism is pure and customary. However, she cautioned that extending sure ideas to the world of labor at giant may be counterproductive.
“Using a different analogy than this human comparison really helps open our minds to other ways and other opportunities to use this technology and helps challenge this constant assumption that it can, will or should replace people,” Darling mentioned.
One instance of expertise helped Darling illustrate how somebody would possibly change their perspective.
The PARO therapeutic robotic, typically seen as a child seal, is used at nursing services and meant to appease and stimulate sufferers with dementia or different cognition issues.
Although somebody would possibly view the expertise as changing human care, Darling considers it an alternative choice to animal remedy that may be unavailable for security, hygiene or different causes.
“I truly believe that the potential of these modern technologies – artificial intelligence and robotics – is not to recreate something we already have,” she mentioned. “It’s for us to partner with these systems in what we’re trying to achieve.”
