Probably since the first ape walked onto the savannah and realised that the smallest ape sweating behind could be forced to carry the taro roots for everyone, there has been a control hierarchy in human communities.

The way we regulate the interaction of high and low status people is fascinating. While the Master at the Big House was kept away from most of the slaves, coolies, flunkies, drabs and ditchdiggers on the estate, he was still never alone. As he swept across the entrance hall, hands reached to take his coat and stick, organised a cup of tea and mulled the wine, laid out his evening clothes and made sure his chamberpot was clean. He, and mistress, and the children, moved on a tide of people, arms like anemones endlessly gesticulating towards the family.

As we see from programs like The Edwardian House, the form of intimate interaction was closely regulated. How do you quarrel about sex in the presence of the maid? How do you signal the butler to leave before you turn on each other in lust or violence?

Now, researchers are studying the contemporary version of this. If we are to have robots, how will they share our personal space?

“So while the world gasped at the sight of a robot defeating a chess Grandmaster, no one had thought to equip these mobile lumps of metal with the fundamental social skills that humans take for granted in each other.

These days, the watchword in robotics is “multi-disciplinary” – bringing together people from sociology and psychology backgrounds, as well as the technical folk, to build a robot that could be a true domestic goddess.

Hence the research team decamping from the laboratory to a humble flat, where it has let its robots loose on 700 volunteer subjects.

The team has been studying issues such as personal space, how people expect a robot to approach them, or even get their attention.

“What’s the best way for a robot to interrupt you if you are reading a newspaper – by gesturing with its arms, blinking its lights or making a sound,” says Prof Dautenhahn.

“We’ve this notion of the personalised robot companion and we are seriously looking into people’s likes and dislikes and how they can be useful to people.”

Prof Chris Melhuish, who is overseeing similar works at the Bristol Robotics Laboratory, agrees.

“The dynamics of interactions are incredibly important. It doesn’t have feelings of course, but must have the techniques and wherewithal to appear to have feelings that are sensitive to humans,” says Prof Melhuish…”

“Suppose a robot is giving directions. If I was to do that, and you became confused, I’d be able to see that in your face and adjust my directions accordingly. So a robot also needs to be able to see your face and determine your befuddlement.”

Professor Melhuish is an enterprising man. Besides these large scale projects, he is working on something much more fundamental – can you build a robot that powers itself?

That is code for the simple mammalian function of “eating”. It is not socially acceptable for robots to scarf the flesh of humans even in a lower class than their owners, so Melhuish’s team has been experimenting with bulding a robot that lives on flies. That is fine, except the insects have to be attracted to the energetic little machine, so it is designed to smell like an old sewer.

In the last week, another British team has reported that it has managed to connect a slime mould to a small six-legged robot. Since slime moulds avoid light, the robot can be made to scuttle around looking for the dark.

The future is surely obvious. Don’t use a slime mould, use a spider. Mumsie is going to have to tolerate a lot of flies, but there is fun in watching the house robot hunt them. And she will get a good robotic cup of tea.

Mind you, we can imagine a scenario where Mumsie realises she misses her adorable tot Egobard. She follows strange noises into the pantry to find that the house robot has wrapped him in a napkin and is trying to inject babies into his torso with an imaginary oviposter.

I wonder why Sony has given up on the robot dog. Perhaps its affection was a touch energetic.

The image, by the way, shows a robot fish which swims with real fish in an acquarium. Maybe it is not shown with a real fish because the actual creature behaves oddly with the replicant. With extreme violence, for instance.

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 19th, 2006 at 11:55 pm and is filed under science. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.