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Robotics

How Children Beating Up a Robot Inspired a New Escape Maneuver System (ieee.org) 87

Posted by EditorDavid from the real-world-problems dept.
Long-time Slashdot reader AmiMoJo quotes a classic article from IEEE Spectrum: A study by a team of Japanese researchers shows that, in certain situations, children are actually horrible little brats^W^W^W may not be as empathetic towards robots as we'd previously thought, with gangs of unsupervised tykes repeatedly punching, kicking, and shaking a robot in a Japanese mall...

The Japanese group didn't just document the bullying behavior, though; they wanted to find clever ways of helping the robot avoid the abusive situations. They started by developing a computer simulation and statistical model of the children's abuse towards the robot, showing that it happens primarily when the kids are in groups and no adults are nearby. Next, they designed an abuse-evading algorithm to help the robot avoid situations where tiny humans might gang up on it. Literally tiny humans: the robot is programmed to run away from people who are below a certain height and escape in the direction of taller people.

When it encounters a human, the system calculates the probability of abuse based on interaction time, pedestrian density, and the presence of people above or below 1.4 meters (4 feet 6 inches) in height. If the robot is statistically in danger, it changes its course towards a more crowded area or a taller person. This ensures that an adult is there to intervene when one of the little brats decides to pound the robot's head with a bottle (which only happened a couple times).
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How Children Beating Up a Robot Inspired a New Escape Maneuver System More

How Children Beating Up a Robot Inspired a New Escape Maneuver System

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  • Man up, losers (Score:5, Funny)

    by JockTroll ( 996521 ) on Sunday April 04, 2021 @03:40PM (#61236236)
    Or rather, robot up. Fit a hydraulic powered vise and a bladed arm to it and install some basic combat techniques. Children may not be too bright, but they will learn not to mess with expensive machinery when they see one or two (hopefully more) of them lose an eye or a limb to a slicing blade or have their heads crushed by the vise, eyes bulging and popping out. And what about blue laser, hunh? Now you're blinded for life, twerp. How do you like it? That will teach you not to mess with adults' belongings.
  • ...or just let the robot beat the brats to a pulp... I have one at home, I can only dream...

    • I have one at home

      A child, or a robot? Given your comment, likely not the former...

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by rtb61 ( 674572 )

      Which in reality points out the problem, When you have robots that look like small children, small children will react to it, like it is a weird stupid small child. Kids pick on each other, get them in a group and any kid that does not fit in will be picked on by the other kids, it is their nature, especially after consuming violent cartoons targeted at children.

      Make robot taller, hide all appendages, no head, cameras fitted flush, wheels hidden beneath, a large mobile R2D2esque droid, everyone will ignore

    • An alternative would be for the robot to announce that further provocation would cause video recording to be imitated and that video footage to be shared with law enforcement.

      Of course the kids could just be tarred and feathered after an initial warning too?

  • may not be as empathetic towards robots with gangs of unsupervised tykes repeatedly punching, kicking, and shaking a robot...

    Robots and Chuck E. Cheese characters

  • The height based algorithm also protects against Ewok attacks.

    • Not Ewoks, but the actors who portrayed them. What happens when the mall hosts a convention for little people? They won't be able to get any service.

  • Has Lord of the Flies not been translated? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Sunday April 04, 2021 @03:59PM (#61236302)

    I'm not sure this behavior should have surprised anyone...

    • Was it a fat robot then ?

    • Re:Has Lord of the Flies not been translated? (Score:5, Informative)

      by MrL0G1C ( 867445 ) on Sunday April 04, 2021 @06:44PM (#61236644) Journal

      The truth is not as vicious as fiction:
      https://www.theguardian.com/wo... [theguardian.com]

      • If The Lord of the Flies was an accurate depiction of reality, people would use a real incident as an example, rather than using a work of fiction.

        In reality, when people are placed in survival situations, they cooperate, share, and help each other.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by nagora ( 177841 )

          If The Lord of the Flies was an accurate depiction of reality, people would use a real incident as an example, rather than using a work of fiction.

          In reality, when people are placed in survival situations, they cooperate, share, and help each other.

          LotF is just an exaggerated story about a typical school day, IME. Children are programmed to find a place in the pecking order and that spells doom for the weakest, even/especially if they are robots.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by jbssm ( 961115 )
          Lord of the Flies is not simply about "people" trapped in a survival situation, is about "children". Unsupervised children of certain ages, can absolutely be awful to other children, and the only thing keeping them back, is that they will have to respond for it to adults latter on.

        • If The Lord of the Flies was an accurate depiction of reality, people would use a real incident as an example, rather than using a work of fiction.

          In reality, when people are placed in survival situations, they cooperate, share, and help each other.

          People, certainly. Kids? I doubt it.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by fazig ( 2909523 )
      Anyone who's been in a school while also being observant of children's behaviour should not be surprised.

      From what I see there, classical child and especially juvenile group behaviour (sometimes also adult behaviour). In-group people can be dicks towards out-group people.

      Here I think that all the Zombie Apocalypse fiction has gotten human behaviour in the face of a catastrophe to be more believable than Lord of the Flies.
      Given the circumstances in Lord of the Flies, it would be more likely that such a

    • I'm not sure this behavior should have surprised anyone...

      It's only a surprise to the "Not MY child" crowd. There are a lot of clueless parents out there, but perhaps not so much today.

      One of the nicest side effects of COVID lockdowns with kids? All the delusional parents out there being forced to see what their "precious" hellions are really like.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by randjh ( 7163909 )
      This is an example of why I say to anyone who thinks we are magically moving towards a kinder gentler society without prejudice is kidding themself. Any time this sort of behaviour occurs, it needs to slapped down in thought, speech, or action. I'm proud to be labelled an SJW.

  • Alternative strategies ... (Score:4, Funny)

    by fahrbot-bot ( 874524 ) on Sunday April 04, 2021 @04:01PM (#61236304)
    Made me think of this Bizarro pinata [blogspot.com] comic.

  • Once its immune to being killed by 524 children I think it's safe enough.

  • But have they factored in for bias? (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward

    So when robots start avoiding cities at night or crossing the streets when certain other people are coming the other way - will "Long time slashdot reader" AmiMoJo then post another article about how evil these algorithms are?

    #StopAsianHate

  • Hate crimes (Score:5, Insightful)

    by PPH ( 736903 ) on Sunday April 04, 2021 @04:18PM (#61236342)

    Charge them.

    I wonder if anyone is going to look at the progression from vandalism, setting fires, abusing animals as a child to adult serial killers in this context.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Ichijo ( 607641 )

      Or instead of charging toddlers for crimes like vandalism, put them into behavioral therapy. In fact, try to optimize the robot designs to be as likely as possible to be bullied by little kids so we can identify them and fix their behavior early.

    • Young people do stupid things in groups. It doesn't make them all individually broken and in need of reform, it means they are perfectly normal dumb young people that will mature into older dumb people, with risk inhibition.

      I mean anyone with kids knows when other kids come over their collective IQ hits the dirt, lower than the lowest in the group, it's science. Everyone has been a kid too, so why does this even need explanation /eyeroll So I'm talking to a kid or an adult that forgot their childhood app

    • Blame the parents. Children in groups do what the other children do if there is no guardian around. Even if it's abusive, bullying, or immoral. It's the job of the parent to help guide the children into being non-assholes as adults.

      What would you do if an adult blocked, bullied, or kicked a robot? Charge them? Exactly!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      As TFA notes children are generally very reluctant to harm things that are alive, or even things that are not alive but protest like a Furby doll.

      There is a discussion to be had here. Eventually robots will get to the point where they look pretty much like humans and express emotions like humans, even if they are not "real" emotions and just programmed responses.

      So how do we decide what is okay to mistreat and what isn't? In the past we have seen minorities mistreated because they were deemed to be "sub hum

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by PPH ( 736903 )

        children may not be as empathetic towards robots as weâ(TM)d previously thought

        Vandalism is one of the first signs of antisocial behavior. It may not progress to harming animals or people, But it's something to be watched for and dealt with early. The point about gangs of children brings up the issue of which ones are easily swayed by a few sociopathic leaders (see the Milgram experiment) and who those sociopathic indivuduals are also needs to be addressed.

        As far as children not being empathetic to robots [youtube.com] ...

  • Well, if you remember old-time movies, robots were not fragile and our heroes had a lot of difficulty defeating them.

    But nowadays robots, like so many other things, are so poorly built!

    • Nearly every science-fiction movie that focused on the robot made it to be a homicidal killing machine that could not be stopped. In reality, find the off switch or pull the battery.

    • Movies aren't reality, in movies stuff happens because it forwards the plot, not because it is practical or sensible.

      In the real world stopping people, especially innocent bystanders, getting killed or seriously hurt normally* takes precedence over almost everything else. If you build a robot that gets broken you lose at most a robot. If your robot kills someone then at the very least you will be facing and probing, distracting and expensive investigation from regulators and at worst could be facing major f

  • Making the robots appear weak and feeble now will serve us well in the robot uprising. The humans won't see what's coming to them.

  • Teach the robot KungFu and let it beat the snot out of the mob of unruly youts.

  • There's a situation Asimov never allowed for in his rules.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tragedy ( 27079 )

      Actually, Asimov's rules deal with exactly this.

      First Law:
      A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
      Second Law:
      A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
      Third Law:
      A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

      The running away from people wanting to damage it would be the third law. Now the second law is a little tricky

      • Thanks, I knew someone would quote the laws...

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by tragedy ( 27079 )

          You're welcome. As far as they go, I know they're utopian, and obviously they're just pseudo-code representing vastly more complex algorithms going on inside the robot brains. Asimov even said as much (not in the same words) in at least one of his stories (probably _I, Robot_). Asimov's stories were also quite clear that bounding adaptive intelligences far beyond human capabilities with such restrictions would not work in the long run. His robots lean towards benevolence (although they do manipulate humans

  • This is why they need educated and disciplined!.
  • ...suddenly doesn't seem so scary anymore. Poor robots.

  • brats^W^W^W (Score:3)

    by dwater ( 72834 ) on Sunday April 04, 2021 @06:37PM (#61236628)

    Wtf is that?

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by dissy ( 172727 )

      ^W represents the ascii control-w character.
      AmiMoJo had his termcap set incorrectly but clearly intended to indicate an End-of-Transmission-Block early on, to correct a mistake and save everyone the time it would take to read the rest of the summary.

      At least I think that's how that works. At our age the memory often plays tricks...

      • Re:brats^W^W^W (Score:4, Informative)

        by Bu11etmagnet ( 1071376 ) on Monday April 05, 2021 @05:07AM (#61237780)

        ^W (control-w) in bash (and other GNU software using the editline library) is configured by default for the "delete word backward from cursor" functionality.

        So ^W^W^W represents the deletion of three words ("horrible little brats"), after which text input continues with "may not be".

        It is a failed attempt at humour, because the end result would be:

        "children are actually may not be as empathetic towards robots"

        Two more ^W-s would have been needed.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      ^W is the keyboard shortcut to delete the last word on some systems, so the joke is that the author wrote it, deleted it and replaced it with something more diplomatic. In the original article it's actually struck out, but you can't do that on Slashdot.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]^W_and_^U

    • Worst grammar ever. "children are actually horrible little brats^W^W^W may not be as empathetic towards robots" = "children are actually may not be as empathetic towards robots".

      Clearly it should be "brats^W^W^W^W^W". Slashdot Editors asleep at the wheel, again.

  • It's possible to vandalize, destroy, or steal one. But it's no more possible to bully a robot than it is to bully a toaster oven or a folding chair.

  • Why should children be empathetic towards robots? Most kids would realise that robots are not sentient beings. You are not causing a robot pain when you attack them.

    Kids test their boundaries when they are confronted with something new. Playing "beat up the robot" would soon get old.

  • I learned it from watching you, Dad!

  • They give up on using a robot for whatever its purpose was. If kids are attacking it, it is hardly winning at its job.

  • Really needs to try designing interactive exhibits for children's museums. I have been hired to engineer items designed to withstand extreme environments, 'austere' conditions, and actual combat. NOTHING prepared me for what happens to things groups of children are allowed unfettered access to. Its a humbling experience, one where you can never be sure you have truly defeated the little bastards.

  • > that it happens primarily when the kids are in groups and no adults are nearby.

    They had to develop a statistical model to figure that out???

  • Instead, or in addition to the above ideas, the defense algorithm should decude who the ringleader is and target that child first. Strike the shepherd and the sheep will scatter.

  • If the robot is statistically in danger it fires a .45 caliber bullet into the head of the predicted offender. ftfy

  • To me it seems like if no one is getting bullied, it isn't bullying.

    Are we going the way of Deep Space Nine where holograms are going to start protesting for rights? Why not EM waves and ideas while we're at it?

    Did I miss something where a bot passed a Turing test?
  • The Japanese group just invented the basic survival skills of a domestic cat.
  • There are two kinds of sociopaths in the world. High Functioning and Low Functioning. Most adults in the world are high functioning sociopaths and they are necessary for modern society to function. There is only a tiny percentage of people who are not sociopaths. You might think they belong to Greenpeace or PETA but these people also want to run your life so they are sociopaths too. The non-sociopath understands that they have no right to tell anyone how to live their life. It's your fucking life. Li

  • Sometimes children stop playing make believe and recognize a thing as well .. a thing.

    We should teach children not to destroy other people's property. But praise them for refusing to treat an object as if it were a being.

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