Simple robots wander NYC asking for trash and recycling, and it's adorable:
My favorite approach to human-robot interaction is minimalism. I've met a lot of robots, and some of the ones that have most effectively captured my heart are those that express themselves through their fundamental simplicity and purity of purpose. What's great about simple, purpose-driven robots is that they encourage humans to project needs and wants and personality onto them, letting us do a lot of the human-robot-interaction (HRI) heavy lifting.
In terms of simple, purpose-driven robots, you can't do much better than a robotic trash barrel (or bin or can or what have you). And in a paper presented at HRI 2023 this week, researchers from Cornell explored what happened when random strangers interacted with a pair of autonomous trash barrels in NYC, with intermittently delightful results.
What's especially cool about this, is how much HRI takes place around these robots that have essentially no explicit HRI features, since they're literally just trash barrels on wheels. They don't even have googly eyes! However, as the video notes, they're controlled remotely by humans, so a lot of the movement-based expression they demonstrate likely comes from a human source—whether or not that's intentional. [...]
[...] Another interesting thing going on here is how people expect that the robots want to be "fed" trash and recycling:
Occasionally, people thought the robots expected trash from them and felt obligated to give the robots something. As the robot passed and stopped by the same person for the second time, she said: "I guess it knows I've been sitting here long enough, I should give it something." Some people would even find an excuse to generate trash to "satisfy" and dismiss the trash barrel by searching through a bag or picking rubbish up off the floor.
[...] I wonder how much of this social interaction is dependent on the novelty of meeting the trash barrel robots for the first time, and whether (if these robots were to become full-time staff) humans would start treating them more like janitors. I'm also not sure how well these robots would do if they were autonomous. If part of the magic comes from having a human in the loop to manage what seems like (but probably aren't) relatively simple human-robot interactions, turning that into effective autonomy could be a real challenge.
Video of the trash robot experiment
(Score: 4, Touché) by Gaaark on Sunday March 19, @12:36AM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRq_SAuQDec [youtube.com]
Talky the smeggin' toaster!
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 4, Insightful) by ikanreed on Sunday March 19, @12:57AM (4 children)
If these things continued to nag people every single day instead of briefly during one social experiment, more of them would end up in the trash than full of trash.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by quietus on Sunday March 19, @10:03AM
I don't think it's the novelty aspect at play here -- rather our tendency to humanize things. "Come here, buddy" and similar expressions you hear in the video ... that's what you say to an endearing pet, not a novelty.
Reminds me of an early encounter with a robotic lawnmower, which clearly was stuck in an inefficient loop: made me laugh and feel pity at the same time. Us humans are complex beings.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday March 20, @04:19PM (2 children)
Hey, while you're contributing some trash, would you please scan the QR code on my side to be eligible for some craptacular offers? Thank you!
A ban on nuclear weapons could be enforced by the threat of use of a stockpile of banned nuclear weapons.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Monday March 20, @06:25PM (1 child)
Please, the actual qr code trash bins [untappedcities.com] don't let you open them without the app
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday March 21, @02:31PM
They don't want people eating out of the bin.
A ban on nuclear weapons could be enforced by the threat of use of a stockpile of banned nuclear weapons.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by MIRV888 on Sunday March 19, @12:56PM
How many times were they kicked over, urinated on, or used for target practice?
I want the maths.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by ElizabethGreene on Sunday March 19, @03:28PM
I met a cousin of one of these at Disney (Florida) in the early 00s. It was a robot trash can that roamed around and interacted with the visitors.
It rolled up to a girl with a schrunchi on her wrist and asked "Hey, what's that thing on your wrist?". She replied "It's for my hair." The can replied "Wow, you must have very hairy wrists!".
That was a lovely experience in an otherwise meh trip.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 19, @05:12PM
Not robots, drones.
(Score: 3, Funny) by DannyB on Tuesday March 21, @02:32PM
Trash can swallows you up. Challenges you to climb out, leaving your rubbish and possibly other items behind in your efforts to escape.
A ban on nuclear weapons could be enforced by the threat of use of a stockpile of banned nuclear weapons.