designing_robotic

Myth: Robots shoud never make mistakes, they should be “perfect and flawless” (ISTAG)
Annoyances
- sociopathic behavious
- ignoring different cultural/social values
- imperfectiosn can be interesting/human
- do we expect all robots to be superheros?
- assumptions of perfection often hinder the development of current robots (e.g. maintainence is not considered necessary for a 'perfect' robot)
- humans are not perfect, why should machines be?
- perfection is context specific, context sensitive
- ignores inevitability of entropy. we should work with, rather than against entropy
Origins
- Ideal meachines of the Industrial Age, always working, never needing to sleep, get paid or complain
- godlike delusions of engineers
- striving for perfection in design/engineering
Maintaining the myth
- reinforced by consistent desire for improvement, onward & upward!
- using “perfection” as a placeholder or substitute for articulating desires and/or purpose of machines/autonobots
- human nature to improve things
- stories, film. fiction, etc+ pop culture
- NOTE: 'evil' robots are usually protrayed as 'perfect' in pop.culture, the 'flaws' or failings make the robots seem more human or 'good'

Strategies to dispel the myth
- imperfection by design
- better illustrate the value of imperfect systems
- do not let visions escape into the future, maintian enough “now” for the future to stand on
- designing artefacts that embrace noise, error, ambiguity → normal/useful/etc
- consider maintainence as part of use (i.e. use cases, experience design)
- design for decay
- use imperfections to build character, quirks, personality, etc+ (e.g. reduced acuracy vision system & eye tracking → less annoying characterisation)