Project Info
Norm Violation Response
Tom Williams
twilliams@mines.edu
Project Goals and Description:
Robots in the future will need to be able to reject requests to perform inappropriate and unachievable actions. However, it is unclear how these rejections should be designed in order to be simultaneously transparent and effective, without accidentally exerting negative influence on human moral norms. As one example, mentioning infeasibility when responding to an immoral and infeasible request might inadvertently downplay the moral dimensions primarily responsible for the command rejection. In this project, students will design and evaluate strategies that robots can use to reject such requests.
More Information:
Grand Challenge: Reverse-engineer the brain.
https://mirrorlab.mines.edu/publications/mott2024hri/
https://mirrorlab.mines.edu/publications/mott2023romanconfrontation/
https://mirrorlab.mines.edu/publications/wen2022hri/
Primary Contacts:
Tom Williams, twilliams@mines.edu
Student Preparation
Qualifications
Ideally, research experience designing and running human-subjects experiments. Minimum: previously or concurrently taking HRI, HCI, or Robot Ethics
TIME COMMITMENT (HRS/WK)
10
SKILLS/TECHNIQUES GAINED
Experimental design, data analysis, writing, presentation
MENTORING PLAN
Students will meet on a weekly basis with Dr. Williams or with a graduate student Mentor.
Preferred Student Status
Sophomore
Junior
Senior