more details here → http://www.sics.se/~majac/workshop2/

• 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)

see also; category robotics, project lirec, the animist paradox