🤖 Can we, and should we, trust robots? And can they trust us back?

📖 My first popular science book, “In Robots We Trust”, is out now with @oxfordacademic.bsky.social!

✨ Available now at your favourite bookshop! You can also read a free preview here: www.google.com/books/editio...

This is super interesting. It's a demo of a communication protocol called GibberLink, based on the ggwave data-over-sound encoding. It allows faster auditory exchange between two artificial agents.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtNa...

1/10 We study LLMs empirically, as we do for many natural systems, as distinct from traditional mathematics and formal computer science. That's OK, but don't be confused about how well we understand them. It is more like how we try to understand economics than, say, electrical engineering.

A new study investigates the role of a robot’s inner speech in enhancing human phronesis, the ability to make ethically sound decisions.

Some good research done by colleagues at my alma mater, the University of Palermo (Italy).

go.nature.com/3E0b8tp

Today, I'm kicking off the semester with the first lecture of "Cognitive Systems and Robotics" for our new MSc Artificial Intelligence cohort at Sheffield Hallam University. Teaching this module is one of my favorite parts of the job!

@sheffieldhallamuni.bsky.social

This morning, I found not one, not two, but three MDPI special issue invitations in my inbox. Time to set up a spam filter, I think.

I just randomly found this book on my bookshelf. It must have been transported there from an alternate timeline. “20 years of research on agents”? Preposterous! We all know that the very idea of software agents has only been invented last year by the LLM folks!

Earlier this month, it was unveiled that next-gen robot vacuum cleaners will feature a retractable arm to pick and place objects. I'm curious but also a bit skeptical about its practical efficiency. We'll have to wait until June to find out how good they really are.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHVQ...

Are social robots deceptive? In this new blog post, I argue that social robots are not deceptive when they are designed to respect some important principles based on a relational view of ethics tonyjprescott.com/2024/12/15/d...
#robotics #socialrobots #robotethics

An interesting and opposite perspective on aggression against robots. The author suggests that people have the right to challenge them, even through violence, to question their role in society. I don't agree: abuse towards social agents should not be normalized.

www.wired.com/story/citize...

wccftech.com/ai-expert-sa... #AI #artificialintelligence

Scientists, academics, researchers: We’re excited to share that @altmetric.com is now tracking mentions of your research on Bluesky! 🧪

December is here!

I recently published a review in Science Robotics on understanding the sense of self through robotics. Find out more at tonyjprescott.com/2024/12/02/u... #ai #robotics #psychology

Are Robots Just Objects?

Join us at Sheffield Hallam University for a Human-Robot Interaction Study to explore how people perceive and interact with a humanoid robot using tangible objects.

👉 Registration link: shorturl.at/6TdfU

@shefrobotics.bsky.social

LLM-based search enginges sound fascinating, but I'm wary. Two reasons:

1) 😵 Hallucinations: misinformation masquerading as facts harms society, an issue with current search engines but amplified by LLMs.
2) 🌍 Environmental impact: AI's carbon footprint is a growing concern.

Proceed with caution.

🤖 Can robots computationally reason about trust?

📜 Take a look at our short paper: "Computational Trust in Robotics: Preliminary Investigations and Evidence", where we present preliminary qualitative results from a systematic review currently under peer review.

🔗 Link: ceur-ws.org/Vol-3825/ext...