EIGHT ULTIMATE CHALLENGES F HUMAN-ROBOT COMMUNICATION

Thomas B. Sheridan Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02 139, USA The invitation to give this keynote came with a suggestion that human-robot communicatior ,the original theme of this conference, was in many cases being abandoned by authors. It was also suggested that there should be effort made to return to that theme. In that spirit I nave contemplated what I believe to be eight of the most challenging longterm problems in human-robot communication. I interpret this phrase in a broad sense, including comrnunication among the designers of robot systems (namely us) with respect to the high-level c.esign, programming and use of robots for humane purposes. Since tl e earliest robots of the 1940s human communication with them has been a serious consideration, and progress over the ensuing 50 years has been great. Control of prosthetic arms has changed from crude cables to myoelectric signals and speech. Control of telemanipula tors for hazardous environments such as nuclear plants, space and undersea has changes from simple on-off control of individual joints to high-level supervisory languages of various kinds, combining both analog and symbolic communication. The same is true for industrial robots, which can now make movements very much faster and more precisely :han can humans. It is not my intent to review that progress, though it is clear that as robots themselves become more intelligent the nature of communication between the human operator and the robot is becoming less and less like that of using a passive hand tool and more and more like the relationship between two human beings. So here are what I consider to be my eight ultimate challenges of human-robot communication. I may change my mind tomorrow. Others certainly have other candidates. 1. Extendinq human physical /social interactions by telepresence

Ths is the basic challenge of virtual reality and telepresence (or tele-existence, see Tachi
et al. 1989). One would like to have direct physical interactions with people and objects even though thc se other people are located some distance away. There are many examples. Telecon ?erencing technology has enabled teleconferees to see . the remote participants, bu; not yet to touch them, or more particularly to touch objects in common. People in different locations would like to engage with one another in sports, or in group learning or other social interactions, in a natural way. An expert in some skill, say surgery, or maintenance of a machine, would like to make use of his skill at a location other than where he is. A teacher of some skill, say a musical instrument or a sport or surgery, would like to teach a student who is elsewhere. A person on eazh would like to explore a planet, and society would like to save the 400 billion dollars or so required to send a human to Mars. Of course when actual mass transfer is required, such as putting a new part into a remote machine, or bringing back a biopsy or a planetary geological specimen, other means will have to be found. The Pathfinder planetary probe showed that in many cases it is not necessary to do mass transfer except locally: the spectral or other analysis can be done right at the remote site. Progress has generally been good, but there remains a long way to go. Small robots with high bandwidth feedback are now available, e.g. the Phantom haptic robot. However avaikble communication techniques for medium bandwidth communication channels such as ISDN lines do not accommodate easily to closed loop real-time control.
IEEE lnterr ational Workshop on Robot and t uman Communication 0-7803-4076-0,97/ $10.00 @ 1997 IEEE.

Experiments in the Human-Machine Systems Lab at MIT with telesurgery have studied means by which one person can guide the hand of a different but remote person, making use of the muscle power and control already built into the latter persons arm and hand, and this requiring only communication technology. There remain fundamental problems of whether telepresence (that is, the sensation of being there) is useful as compared to high-bandwidth, high resolution seeing, forcekactile sensing, and motor dexterity. No one has ever proven that telepresence is really necessary to get the job done, or by itself enhances performance. A new form of analysis is called for, namely an optimization of the allocation of presence-as some mix of telepresence and real presence-for deciding how we as humans should allocate our attention in performing our work and conducting our lives (Sheridan, 1970).

2.

Human monitoringhupervision of automation

Automation in manufacturing, aviation and air traffic control, and many other aspects of life is now a fact, and the human operator on many fronts is being moved to the new role of supervisory controller (Sheridan, 1992). Such a role change, however, places new demands on the human to become a monitor of the automation as well as a keen observer who maintains situation awareness and is always ready to detect and diagnose incipient abnormalities, and to step in and take over control if necessary. The problem is that people have been shown to be very poor monitors. This is especially true if the human is forced to become a passive monitor rather than an active co-participant. The phrase human-centered automation has recently become popular. Generally it is taken to be a principle of keeping the human front and center as automation technology in one form or another grows. Unfortunately human-centered automation connotes different meanings to different people. Below are listed ten alternative meanings (Sheridan, 1996), all surely somewhat idealistic. For each alternative meaning a restrictive qualification is added in parentheses, which to the writer seems necessary. When the alternative meanings of the phrase are examined, we find the substance of human-centered automation thin, and the real potential somewhat questionable. 1. Allocate to the human the tasks best suited to the human, allocate to the automation the tasks best suited to it. (Some tasks are too simple to bother automating, while some are so difficult no one has any idea how to program them. See further discussion on this point below .) 2. Keep the human operator in the decision and control loop. (The human can handle only control tasks of bandwidth below one Hz and exhibits severe limits in sustaining attention.)
3. Maintain the human operator as the final authority over the automation. (This is not always the safest way. It very much depends on task context.)

4. Make the human operators job easier, more enjoyable, or more satisfying through friendly automation. (Operator ease and enjoyment dont necessarily correlate with operator responsibility and system performance.) 5. Empower the human operator to the greatest extent possible extent through automation. (Operator empowerment is not the same as system performance.)
6. Support trust by the human operator. (Too much trust is just as bad as not enough trust.)

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computer-based advice about everything he or she should want to know. human error and keep response variability to the variability enhance learning. Darwin

9. Make the operator a supervisor of subordinate automatic control system(s). (Maybe not always. For some tasks direct manual control may be best.)
10. Achieve the best combination of human and automatic control, where best is defined by explicit system objectives. (Dont we wish we always had explicit system objectives! More will be said of t h s below.)

these many dilemmas? I think we will be coping with human-centered some time to come, though some new phrase may become fashionable.

humans and computers with models of each other

Mathematica models of physical systems have proven extremely useful in systems operation, foi example as observers or Kalman filters in control, as world models in AI, ognitive psychologists have in recent years invoked the notion of mental and so on. model, a hyl othetical internal representation of how some physical process works. Presumably i mental model can be used as a referent for asking logical questions about how the procc ss would respond to various inputs. However, we lack objective means to ascertain som ones mental model, other than asking him or her to describe it or draw it. In any case tke concept appears to be useful and gaining in popularity. An erpert human operator of some automated equipment presumably has some valid mental I ode1 of how his equipment works. However a novice operator may have a very poor me tal model. We need to assist operators in having and retaining valid mental models, partic ularly when the computer or automation system is complex. We might call it a mental mo el support system, and its function would be to keep the human operator tuned in to hat the automation is now doing, feeling, thinking or planning. It WO\ Id also be useful if the computer could have a mental model of the human, and what he or she is doing, feeling, thinlung or planning. This might be based on measured fac al expressions or other body language, or upon inferences from past verbal utterances or ast behavior in operating the system. The i c eal would be analogous to two people who know each other well, and can pick up subtle cues from one another in order to collaborate. Husband and wife often

4. Helping1 humans decide what they want

a computer plus a robot cannot perform - once that Except for one. That is the function of deciding upon goals, criteria, objects or events, in other words specifying a utility function or an Machines dont seem to have values, unless of course they are them. Values seems to be a uniquely human quality. might assert that the humans most basic underlying values and for example survival, and all expressions of day-to-day goals the basic goals-in that sense humans too are programmed.

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In any case, the functional specification of objectives is not easy for humans. In fact when the objects and events they are to consider and evaluate are new ones, ones with which they have no experience, it is close to impossible for people to judge utility or relative worth. If two alternatives are being compared and they are the same in all respects but one, the decision is relatively easy. One alternative is said to be dominated by the other. But when all dominated alternatives are thrown out, one is left with a set of alternatives which, when plotted in the space of the attribute variables, form what is called a Pareto frontier, along which there is no apriori basis for asserting that one alternative is better or worse than another, except by reference to a utility function. Keeney and Raiffa (1976) have explicated a theory of decision in such circumstances. March and Simon have asserted that in real life people do what they term satisfice: namely, they narrow their preferences to a region on the Pareto frontier where they are satisfied, and they are not interested in further refinement of their preferences. When it comes to malung decisions in attribute spaces of more than 4 dimensions it becomes difficult even to satisfice. Here is where computers can help- by rendering alternatives in juxtaposition to one another and letting people observe the implications of their ordinal and cardinal ratings of relative worth (Charny and Sheridan, 1986). This is a wonderful new opportunity for computer graphics and virtual reality. The market will be slow to develop, however, because decision and policy makers who make strategy for technology application will be slow to understand the problem.

5. Allocating normal functions between human and machine

The designer of automation and robotic systems must at some point make decisions about which functions will be served (which tasks will be done) by humans and which by machines (computers, robots). It is already quite clear that the humans functions are evolving away from direct hands-on manipulation and control and toward that of supervision -planning, programming the computer, monitoring the automation, diagnosing and fixing failures, and learning/generalizing from experience (Sheridan, 1992). The question is whether there are objective means by which to allocate functions between human and computer/robot, and indeed whether designers can aspire to some form of optimization. I am inclined to be pessimistic about optimization of function allocation, much as I am pessimistic about optimization of any complex system for which few constraints are specifiable in quantitative terms, and the elicitation of an objective function in the hyperspace of salient attributes staggers the imagination (as just mentioned above). (This in not the same as optimization where reality is modeled in terms of relatively few variables and simple objective functions are assumed-sometimes because they are mathematically tractable, such as quadratic criteria are assumed in modern control. Automation technology is changing rapidly as are societys wants and needs, and the only way to discover what new machines can do under new circumstances is to try them. Failures are bound to occur, but that is the only way we learn. Darwin called this variability due to new testing requisite variety. When coupled with the successes and failures the whole process is called evolution. I am a believer in design evolution. This is not to say that we should not work hard at developing predictive models and bring some modicum of order to the process of function allocation. We must try, for the stakes are quite high in terms of system performance.
6. Allocating authority at a time of crisis

Allocating functions between humans and automation for normal, usual, expected events and demands may be difficult. But the problem of allocating function when events are

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d unexpected is at least as difficult, and quite different. It might be m of allocating authority between computer and human at a time of recedents at the extremes of decision bandwidth. In nuclear power ds be dropped between the fuel rods instantly when ability are met. There is no time to wait for human on. This function has been made automatic, an no one disputes its me are decisions to launch nuclear missiles, or to take other und social and political implications. Those who have even actions be automated have been quickly outvoted. Some amount of among multiple persons is absolutely called for. There is f m

s lots of room for weighing the human against the computer.

quick decisions and take rapid actions which may be d computers can make stupid blunders out of ignorance of the more time there is to make measurements and perform sis of what has gone wrong. At the same time the longer may get and the greater the difficulty in fixing it. So there an be addressed by mathematical modeling- if the system babilities and costs of consequences can be assigned. uations automation can be triggered to perform certain me and take off the heat of having to make a quick tion that should be explored for anticipated failures. In ell ahead of time, simulators can be used by humans to cide what to do when system state reaches the critical dicted are the most troublesome, by definition. It rs to invest effort in trying to anticipate classes of tected, and consider from the outset alternative roles

7. Controllfng the chaos of mixed initiative and distributed interaction

The phrase dirtributed decision-making refers to multiple humans or artificial agents which observe different subsets of the total state information, must communicate with one another over delayed and/or inadvertently limited bandwidth communication channels, and in the end must join:ly allocate common resources or take other coordinated actions. Examples are fighting oj large fires such as forest fires, national disasters and war, and marketing decisions of multi-national corporations. Another example is supervising multiple interacting robots or automatic systems where each of the latter has a different set-point (which can be adjusted by the supervisor). Distributed decision-making gets even more complex as the various agents have different decis.on criteria, and as both humans and machines assume the role of decisionmaking agent. These are sometimes called mixed initiative systems. We need models for understanding the behavior of distributed decision-making, especially for systems with mixed initiative. Currently neither computer science nor cognitive science has much to offer.

8. Maintainling peace in a world of mobile malevolent telerobots

For many years I have been troubled by the spectre of a world filled with mobile telerobots which are able to wander in every street and back yard, swim in the oceans and rivers and

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streams, fly in the air, and even crawl through sewer pipes. Telerobots today are doing a l l of these things. There are no technological breakthroughs required, only refinements on existing technology. Quite clearly such telerobots can and already are spying, and can easily do sabotage and more dramatic forms of destruction. That is why military organizations around the world are developing land mobile, submersible and air- and space-borne telerobots as rapidly a they can. The laser guided missile is only one form of such device. We will see many more in the near future. In classical engagements of force between adversaries the soldiers wore brightly colored uniforms, rode atop horses, carried flags, and played horns and drums as they marched into battle. It wasnt always safe, but at least such actions testified to their bravery and signaled that they were ready to sacrifice themselves for their cause. Then bravery became compromised by survival instincts: in recent years soldiers don camouflage, ride into battle inside steel tanks or fast-moving evasive aircraft, and perform their duties at night or when unexpected-but they still risk their own bodies to the cause, though with some protections. Now all that is changing. Soldiers will no longer be soldiers in the old sense, they will be supervisory operators of telerobots, programming them and then monitoring from afar. As the telerobots do their dirty work, the soldiers will not risk their own bodies, and in many cases will be immune from the pain and suffering that their telerobots are causing (pain and suffering signals are hard to provide in the state feedback!). Furthermore the telerobot itself need not have a national symbol emblazoned on its side: that is nonfunctional. The telerobot can be anonymous, with encrypted instructions coming from its supervisor, providing no practical way for others to trace its origins or source of control. As such telerobots become cheap they need not be in the employ of wealthy nations, whom we would suppose might bear some responsibility and pride in their own moral standards. They can be put to work by lone or crazed terrorists. This is not a happy picture, but it is our technology, and I think together we bear some responsibility to control it.
References

Charny, L., and Sheridan, T.B. (1986). Satisficing decision-making in supervisory control. Unpublished paper. Cambridge, MA: MIT, Man-Machine Systems Laboratory. Keeney, R.L., and Raiffa, H. (1976). Decisions with Multiple Objectives: Preferences and Value Tradeofls. NY: Wiley. March, J. G., and Simon, H. A. (1958). Organizations. NY: Wiley. Sheridan, T.B. (1970). Optimum Allocation of Personal Presence, IEEE Transactions Systems, Science and Cybernetics, Vol. SSC-6, No. 2, pp. 140-145, April. Sheridan, T.B. (1992). Telerobotics, Automation and Human Supervisory Control. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Sheridan, T.B. (1996). Human-centered automation: oxymoron or common sense? Proc. ZEEE Intemational Conference on Systems, Man and Cybernetics, Vancouver, Canada. Tachi, S., Arai, H. and Maeda, T. (1989). Development of anthropomorphic teleexistence slave robot. In Proceedings of International conference on Advanced Mechatronics, May 21-24, Tokyo: 385-390.

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