
I was a robot and this is what I learned - CapitalistCartr
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/12/07/i_was_a_robot_and_this_is_what_i_learned/
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cr0sh
I've experienced this as well - albeit in a slightly modified form, but one
more people can relate to.

I work with a friend of mine who has a non-profit to repair and donate power
wheelchairs and scooters for people in need. Basically, he gets old or unused
chairs (you'd be surprised at how many "new" chairs get donated - simply
because the batteries died, and people can't afford new ones), and we fix them
up, clean them up, then donate them back out (many times they get donated back
to us when the person no longer needs the chair).

Anyhow, one year we decided to go to the Abilities Expo which was being held
in Los Angeles that year. As a part of this experience, we decided to take
some of our chairs (including some we had customized in various ways - my
friend is also an artist when it comes to metal craft - and fire art) to the
expo to ride in them and "experience" what users of these chairs experience
and gain that perspective, so we could apply what we learned to customizations
and such.

What we learned are that people are assholes (big surprise).

Despite us being in chairs, at an Expo dedicated to products and companies
marketing devices, materials, etc for those in need - we experienced on a
constant basis people not watching out for us, stepping in our way of travel,
not respecting us as human beings (like some people couldn't even look us in
the eye as we talked with them - like we weren't human or something), etc. We
also found the aisles between vendors to be poorly laid out for wheelchair and
similar navigation.

We came away from that conference with a new perspective on what power
wheelchair users and other people in similar situations face - and it isn't a
very nice situation to be in. Furthermore, these are real people, intelligent
people - just with a different way of getting around.

Unfortunately, for many able-bodied individuals, it appears that those with
less ability to move around either don't exist to them, or are a nuisance in
some manner - or they have some kind of fear about their situation. The
experience greatly opened my eyes to something which until that time, I hadn't
been aware of (iow - I was probably one of those on "the other side").

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waqf
I understand that people not being able to look you in the eye makes you
_feel_ extremely disrespected.

But I don't think it helps anyone for you to jump from there to assuming that
what's going on inside their head is "[I don't] respect [this person] as a
human being".

To be clear, I think other things you mention, like not getting out of your
way, _are_ evidence of that. But eye contact? Probably anxiety from an
unfamiliar social situation.

~~~
derekp7
I would go a bit further, and say it is from trying not to be rude. For
example, it is rude to stare, and if you encounter someone who has a
disability, you want to counter the natural instinct to stare by over-
compensating and not looking. Also, if you look at someone in a wheelchair in
the eye, you are also looking down at them, which seems rude. But if you kneel
down so you are at eye level, you are now patronizing them. So what is the
correct behavior, especially if you are trying hard to be polite but it is
conveying the opposite effect?

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cr0sh
> So what is the correct behavior, especially if you are trying hard to be
> polite but it is conveying the opposite effect?

How would you approach a conversation or a polite word with someone who was
significantly shorter than you (but still an adult)?

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MrQuincle
How could this experience be improved? The "funny" behaviour of sneaking up
behind it and covering its eyes is just inexperience with the rules that come
with new tech perhaps. Some of it might improve by just upping the number of
telemachines on the streets.

* How visual is your head? Do you see someone's head also from behind?

* Do people know it's a person or do they think it's an AI?

* Do people know you're a visitor or do they think you're a researcher?

* It's small. Would making it bigger already help?

* I say excuse me when I want to pass through. How good is the audio to convey that intent?

* Do you see your surroundings good enough? People are smart in finding their way, so might see a different route you can take and don't step aside because of that.

And probably a 100 other things to research and improve!

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EvilTerran
> I say excuse me when I want to pass through. How good is the audio to convey
> that intent?

Perhaps a bicycle bell would help?

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7oGk-
ozhKI&t=26](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7oGk-ozhKI&t=26)

That's a "prank" video, but I'm quite serious - it does demonstrate that
people will instinctively move out of the way when they hear a bike bell. And
towards the end of the video (1:38-1:47), he even uses it successfully on an
escalator, and in the aisles of a grocery store - so the effect isn't limited
to places where you'd expect to encounter bikes.

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gohrt
Not "instinctive", but "sensible". Saying "excuse me" or "passing through"
would work just as well.

~~~
drspacemonkey
Assuming the audio is good enough to use in such a fashion in a crowded
conference, at least.

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Animats
The Beam is a wimpy teleoperator. Send the new Atlas, from Boston Dynamics
[1], to a conference, and you won't have that problem. People running away in
terror might be more of an issue.

(It's not clear what will become of Boston Dynamics. Google wants to sell
them. DARPA and the Marines gave up on their BigDog as not militarily useful.
The technology is impressive, but it cost well over $100 million (mostly DoD
funding) and 25 years to get to this point, with no market in sight.)

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVlhMGQgDkY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVlhMGQgDkY)

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forgottenpass
_To admit this, especially within the confines of the technology industry, is
to show weakness._

Really? It seems like every conference I go to the hottest off-subject topics
of chit-chat are griping about conferences, work travel, and stress of above.
Followed closely by other crowd favorites "things used to be better" and "I
haven't walked more than a mile a day in months, my feet suddenly hurt!"

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yardie
We have a Beam. We put a staff shirt on it just to humanize it a bit and it
worked pretty well. From a distance you can't really tell if it's a robot or a
dispenser. Our Beam is 2 pedestals with a screen and camera. Our sanitizer
dispenser is 2 pedestals with a head full of sanitizer gel. If you put them
next to each other you have a 50% chance someone would stick their hand under
the Beam camera expecting gel to come out.

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anonymfus
So sad that this article has a stereotypic caricature as first illustration.

~~~
bitwize
Yeah... the article itself is about the perils of meat privilege, yet the
editorial staff can't even escape their own biases.

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gumby
I used a Beam to "attend" a robotics conference in San Jose (just a short
drive from my house, but I wanted to try it out). A lot of people treated "me"
oddly, of course, but it did work to get vendor info.

It felt like a kind of gimmick until I had one amazing experience. I was
talking to a sales guy from a big machine company -- he looks like he used to
sell trucks or aerospace stuff. He forgot that he was talking to a screen and
at one point leant forward to touch my on the "arm" (I assume he touched the
vertical screen supports). We both laughed. But it was a telling moment.

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sickbeard
I think it's a bit much to ask that you be treated just like being there in
person when you are simply controlling a small vehicle on wheels remotely.

