Challenges in Human Computer Interaction: Are robots really coming? An interview with Don Norman

In anticipation of our upcoming Robolift conference, we launch a special blog series on robotics and networked objects! Andrea Bianchi, Lift@Seoul organizer and Ph.D. student at the Graduate School of Culture Technology (GSCT) of KAIST is one of our first authors. He will share with us his experience researching the challenges in robot-human interaction. Contact us if you would like to write on this topic.

For a long time we have been told that robots will populate our homes and everyone will soon own a robotic companion. Yet in 2010 there are still only a handful of robotic applications in home settings: the most prominent examples are vacuum cleaners, toys and child/eldercare robots who are mainly popular in Asia.

Is the robotic era really around the corner or is it just confined to sci-fi movies and books: are robots really coming?

I had the chance to ask Donald Norman this question, a professor, writer and businessman, former apple vice-president and co-founder of the Nielsen Norman Group. Don Norman is mostly famous for his work in psychology and design. He authored several articles on the future of robotics.

For Don Norman there are no doubts: robots are not just coming, they are already here. In fact, the average person in our society probably owns already a few of them, even though he would not regard them or call them as robots. "My washer machine is a better robot than my robotic vacuum cleaner", Norman says, adducing that not only his washer machine is electronically and mechanically sophisticated, but it is also very intelligent at the point of being almost completely automated.

The same is true for his electronic coffee machine, which accomplishes autonomously several mechanical sub-tasks (grinding beans, filling the filter with coffee, pouring the water…) applying a sophisticated level of sensing and intelligence, although users don't really refer to it as a robot.

"It is all a problem of definition". Home appliances such as washer machines, though usually not recognized as robots, are getting more and more sophisticated and widespread: adapting Norman's notion of Invisible Computer to this situation, I call these machines the Invisible Robots.

"Now, the fact that we don't call these machines robots is mostly due to two types of reasons", explains Norman. "On one side, it is undeniable that robots are defined as such by the popular mind", meaning that people call robots specific objects, often represented as anthropomorphic machines in popular culture. "On the other side, even the people who work with robots don't really define what robots are. As it happens also in other fields, they don't attempt a definition of the core subject in their field (i.e. the robots), but they take this for granted. However, if I had to come up with a definition of robots I would probably say that robots are characterized by autonomy and movement". An intelligent car, is an example of robot, but a sophisticated electronic coffee machine is an equally good example: in fact, they both move autonomously (altering their position or moving their internal parts) guided by an artificial brain in order to complete complex tasks.

So where will the future lead us? Undoubtedly we will have always more invisible and visible robots in our homes. Some of them will resemble humans or take inspiration from natural phenomena, while some other will not. Some vehicles are biologically inspired (quadruped donkey-robost that can climb uneven surfaces) and some are not (nowadays most planes don't have flapping wings, though at the beginning of their history they had).

Robots are really coming!

Further readings:
• Don Norman on Human Robotic Interaction
• Noel Sharkey explains why many robots are biologically inspired
• Don Norman's upcoming book, to be published in October 2010: Living with Complexity (MIT Press)