A Robot in the Kitchen

Abstract

A technology demonstrator is one thing but having people use a technology is another, and the result reported here is that people often ignore our lovingly crafted handiwork. The SERA project- Social Engagement with Robots and Agents-was set up to look explicitly at what happens when a robot companion is put in someone’s home. Even if things worked perfectly, there are times when a companion’s human is simply not engaged. As a result we have separated our “dialog manager” into two parts: the dialog manager itself that determines what to say next, and an “interaction manager ” that determines when to say it. This paper details the design of this SALT-E architecture. 1