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Video linksAggregation:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9foi342LXQE

Brian Blessed GPS:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JpKuYbJQK4

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“Are you talking to me?”

What to say when you are talking to a robot.

Dr. Nava TintarevDept. of Computing Science

University of Aberdeen

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We are the SAsSY project

This is short for Scrutable Autonomous Systems

There are six of us:Logician/Computer scientist on reasoning Computer scientists on generating text from dataComputer scientists on human computer interactionPsychologist, or rather a psycholinguist

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We are the SAsSY project

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Why I got into computing…

“Yes, this system is a little bit finicky. It won’t let me put this in directly”

“Machine at train station will not let me buy a ticket!”

“Why is it picking this route when the other one is about 10 miles shorter?”

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The problem…The system needs to tell us things

What if the system sounded like Brian Blessed (1.15-2.00)?

And we need to tell it some things back

Or ask it questions – “this one?”

No, not of the @?$!% kind…

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ASIMO immediately recognizing customers' intention by a show of hands, Honda.com, 26 June 2013

Let’s talk about Robots….

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What’s a computer?

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Autonomous systems

Computers that do not look like humans

But they can ‘see’ and ‘think’ (calculate) and ‘react’ (according to a program) and‘learn’ (collect new information) and‘talk’ (send information to) people or other computers

on their own.

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Autonomous systemsThey can do things that we cannot do

Too boring, too complicated, or maybe too dangerousLike Fukushima

Sort of like a robot…

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What could possibly go

wrong?

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What could possibly go wrong

The U.S. states of Nevada, Florida and California permit the operation of autonomous cars .

The first license for an autonomous car was given in May 2012.

An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), also known as a drone, is an aircraft without a human pilot on board.

The United States government has made hundreds of attacks on targets in northwest Pakistan since 2004 using drones (unmanned aerial vehicles).

Drones also used for policing and firefighting, and nonmilitary security work, such as surveillance of pipelines.

With great power comes great responsibility…

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The problemAutonomous systems act on behalf of the user

Should the GPS have a mind of its own?

The system’s decisions are often opaque to the userWhy did it turn off here?

The user should be able to view and challenge decisions “Hey car, that’s not right! Why are we turning off at the next junction?”

Solution: Keep people in the loop. Give them explanations!

“There’s a traffic jam coming up, you’ll get home quicker taking this country road!”

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Pilot Authority Control of Tasks (PACT)

PACT level

Computer autonomy

Levels of Human Machine Interface(Modified from Taylor, 2001)

5b Computer monitored by pilot

Computer does everything autonomously

5a Computer chooses action, performs it and informs human

4b Computer backed up by pilot

Computer chooses action and performs it unless human disapproves

4a Computer chooses action and performs it if human approves

3 Pilot backed up by computer

Computer suggests options and proposes one of them

2 Pilot assisted by computer

Computer suggests options to human

1 Pilot assisted by computer only when required

Human asks computer to suggest options and human selects

0 Pilot Whole task done by human except for actual operation

HumanAction

HumanMonitors

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A solution: Explanations

From Keith, you should go to Elgin instead of Aberlour. This is because Keith to Aberlour is blocked by snow.

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Example: Logistics

Deliver a package from Aberdeen to Inverness

User prefers to go via Aberlour to see the Highlands but the system routes them through Elgin.

Elgin

Aberlour

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Put another way…

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Two plansA (Aberdeen - Keith - Elgin -

Inverness)B (Aberdeen - Keith - Aberlour -

Inverness)

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And a set of reasons and arguments….From Keith – to can go to either Elgin or AberlourYou cannot do both.

If Keith to Aberlour is impassableThen you should not go through Aberlour.

And you should go through Elgin

Elgin Aberlour

Aberlour

Snow inAberlou

r!

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Which gives us a plan and a dialogTwo plans:A (Aberdeen - Keith - Elgin - Inverness)B (Aberdeen - Keith - Aberlour - Inverness)

System suggests A

User asks why not B, which is preferable

System says that one of the actions of B is not executable because of counter-argument (impassable)

The user re-instates plan B by giving a counter-counter-argument (ploughed)

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DiscussionUser: why not Aberlour

System: Keith to Aberlour is blocked by snow (morning report)

User: the road has just been ploughed (new knowledge)

System: okSystem: Drive from Keith to Aberlour

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A slight detour…Natural Language

Generation…

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Where it gets tricky

Size: Thousands of steps, hundreds of decisions

What is possible and needed?A person cannot drive for more than 3 hrs straight.You can only refuel at certain places

ResourcesNumber of trucks a deliver company has

Multiple partiesDifferent delivery companies have different interests

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Where it gets tricky

TailoringThe driver will need different information from the coordinator!And different information before and during his/her time on the road.

Information presentationAggregation and summariesGraphics or textHow best to combine

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Some of the things we’ve done

so far

Information presentation

Before we can ask why, we need to understand the what…

Mostly language (English), but also graphs.

How hard is the information to understand?

26/30

Demo: plansSTRIP plans are difficult to read in

standard notation

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But there are ways to remove redundant text using aggregation

Text is more natural and easier to read

Demo: plans

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“What have the romans ever given us?”

How many objects can we join together?http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9foi342LXQE

“Load the truck. Load the van. Load the car” vs“Load the truck, the van and the car.”

No known limit

Similarity of words likely to matterLoad the ship and the dishwasher.Load the truck and the van.

29/30

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So we are working on

ArgumentationDistributed planningInformation presentation (NLG)User modelling All informed by experiments with people!

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VisionComplex systems

Share information

Making important decisions

But we still need to know what is going on

AND add our input

Checking it with people in experiments

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Come talk to us!

Blog: http://sassyproject.wordpress.com/

Official: http://www.scrutable-systems.org

Nava Tintarev, n.tintarev@abdn.ac.uk