Word: cog
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Dates: during 2000-2000
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Kismet is able to engage in the kind of purposeful human interactions that cousin Cog could not. Kismet calls people toward it. And when they get too close for its cameras to see them well, it protects its personal space and pulls away. When an object suddenly appears in front of it, Kismet quickly withdraws and flashes a look of bewilderment. Most winningly, the robot is able to engage in a babbling "conversation" with humans in its midst. When it "talks," it takes turns with its human interlocutor, a decent representation of a conversation between an adult and an infant...
Kismet is the creation of Cynthia Breazeal, a postdoc in the Humanoid Robotics Group at M.I.T. Breazeal has studied for years under Rodney Brooks, perhaps the leading figure in the world of robotics. Breazeal got the idea for Kismet when she was working with Cog, another robot in Brooks' lab that was built to have the physical capacities of a human infant. Cog has a torso, a head and arms, and it can engage in simple tasks like turning a crank or playing with a slinky. Cog is physically gifted but completely lacking in social skills...
That deficiency was driven home to Breazeal one day when she was interacting with Cog. Breazeal put an eraser down in front of Cog, and Cog used its arm to pick the eraser up. When the robot put the eraser down, Breazeal picked it up. Breazeal and Cog continued taking turns picking the eraser up and putting it down. To an outside observer, it might have looked like the robot was intentionally playing with Breazeal, but Cog's mind just didn't work that way. It was while engaging in this deceptively human-feeling interaction that Breazeal decided...
...LESS COG IN THE MACHINE...
...little cog in a big wheel...you are cogs in a wheel too. You must make a difference," Johnson said...