Nicola Fankhauser

DIUF - Department of Informatics University of Fribourg, Switzerland

nicola.fankhauser@unifr.ch

http://www-iiuf.unifr.ch/diuf/pai/

March 2003

Social Context Awareness in Pervasive Computing

Overview

1.Introduction

2.Problems of Pervasive Computing

3.A Sociable Robot called Kismet

4.Movie: Introduction to Kismet

5.Kismet's Systems

6.Social Responses (plus Movie)

7.Context awareness and social robots

8.Conclusion

Introduction

● Many small, mobile devices are part of our daily life

● Question: Why do cellular phones ring in the middle of a classical concert?

● Answer: They do not know about social context.

● Problem: How do I make 'dumb' devices understand social context?

Problems of modeling Context

● How to model context? – Many have failed.

● Model too complex– Too much code: impossible to manage– Still explicit, implanted model

● Model too simple– Paradox: Behaves sometimes worse than

without context

A sociable Robot called Kismet

● AI Lab at MIT created baby-like Robot

● Kismet likes– Faces– playing with Toys– Movements

● Kismet can express 'feelings' and 'intentions'

Attention System

● Stereo color vision system● Kismet searches for motion● Attention System influenced by

– Motivational state– Emotional state

Motivation System

● Drives (de: Triebe, fr: force végétative) with optimal operation point:– Social drive– Stimulation drive– Fatigue drive

● Emotions– Arousal (high, neutral or low) (de: Erregung, fr: excitation)

– Valence (positive, neutral or negative)– Stance (open, neutral or closed) (de: Einstellung, fr:

attitude)

Behavior System (1)

● Question: How to act?● A Winner-Takes-All Game● Loosely layered hierarchy● Takes input from

– Social, Fatigue and Stimulation Drive– Perception of People and Toys

Behavior System (2)

Motor System

● Takes input from– Emotional System– Behavior System

● Face expressions result, like– Fear– Happiness– Interest– Sadness

Social Responses

● Affective responses: Face changes expression

● Exploratory responses: Visual search for desired stimuli

● Protective reponses: Turn away the head from unwanted stimuli

● Regulatory responses: Habituation to unchanging stimuli

Context Awareness and Social Robots

● Artificial Intelligence researchers are not working together with Pervasive Computing researchers.

● Reason: They have a very different background– AI's vision: bring reality to machine– Pervasive Computing's vision: augment

reality with machines● Why not join forces?