Meet the Remarkable Robot That Communicates Like No Other

(upbeat instrumental music)

Can I have that bowl?

This one?

No, the other one.

Final answer, you wanted object two.

[Narrator] Not bad for a robot, huh?

The conversation is still a bit stilted, sure.

This one?

No, not that one.

This one?

Yes, that one.

[Narrator] But what you just saw is a human

conversing with a machine in a remarkable way.

Researchers at Brown University have turned

what's normally an industrial robot known as Baxter

into a machine that can not only follow commands

but ask for clarification.

This one, this one?

[Narrator] They've trained it to guess whether

the human subject is asking for a bowl, spoon,

or marker.

You'll notice that the robot is wearing a Microsoft Connect

as a charming hat.

That allows it to see what the human is pointing at.

Combine that with software that lets it hear

certain key words, and the robot can accurately

and rapidly determine what you want.

It can even recognize when a human has made a mistake.

Can I have that spoon?

The spoon.

This one?

Yes.

[Narrator] And researchers haven't stopped

with voice and gestures.

Meet the other Baxter that follows instructions

by thought alone.

This EEG reads special brain signals that only fire

when the human helper notices something wrong.

So if the robot tries to put an object in the wrong box

the human can just notice the mistake

and Baxter corrects itself.

Both machines may be limited in abilities,

but they represent an important step

in human robot interaction.

Final answer, you wanted object four.

[Narrator] Because soon enough we'll be living

and working with robots, all of us.

That means humans need to communicate with them

like humans communicate with one another.

The big rule for the time being, treat any robot you meet

like it's your grandparent.

Be polite and get the hell out of the way if you have to.