Mind, Body, World- Foundations of Cognitive Science, 2013a

y changing its facial expression, directing its gaze to a location in a shared environment,
changing its posture, and vocalizing.
When Kismet is communicating with a human, it uses the interaction to fulfill
internal drives or needs (Breazeal, 2002). Kismet has three drives: a social drive to
be in the presence of and stimulated by people, a stimulation drive to be stimulated
by the environment in general (e.g., by colourful toys), and a fatigue drive that
causes the robot to “sleep.” Kismet sends social signals to satisfy these drives. It can
manipulate its facial expression, vocalization, and posture to communicate six basic
emotions: anger, disgust, fear, joy, sorrow, and surprise. These expressions work
to meet the drives by manipulating the social environment in such a way that the
environment changes to satisfy Kismet’s needs.
For example, an unfulfilled social drive causes Kismet to express sadness, which
initiates social responses from a caregiver. When Kismet perceives the caregiver’s
face, it wiggles its ears in greeting, and initiates a playful dialog to engage the caregiver.
Kismet will eventually habituate to these interactions and then seek to fulfill
a stimulation drive by coaxing the caregiver to present a colourful toy. However, if
this presentation is too stimulating—if the toy is presented too closely or moved
too quickly—the fatigue drive will produce changes in Kismet’s behaviour that
attempt to decrease this stimulation. If the world does not change in the desired
way, Kismet will end the interaction by “sleeping.” “But even at its worst, Kismet
gives the appearance of trying to relate. At its best, Kismet appears to be in continuous,
expressive conversation” (Turkle, 2011, p. 118).
Kismet’s behaviour leads to lengthy, dynamic interactions that are realistically
social. A young girl interacting with Kismet “becomes increasingly happy and
relaxed. Watching girl and robot together, it is easy to see Kismet as increasingly
happy and relaxed as well. Child and robot are a happy couple” (Turkle, 2011, p. 121).
Similar results occur when adults converse with Kismet. “One moment, Rich plays
at a conversation with Kismet, and the next, he is swept up in something that starts
to feel real” (p. 154).
Even the designer of a humanoid robot can be “swept up” by their interactions
with it. Domo (Edsinger-Gonzales & Weber, 2004) is a limbed humanoid robot that
is intended to be a physical helper, by performing such actions as placing objects
on shelves. It learns to behave by physically interacting with a human teacher.
These physical interactions give even sophisticated users—including its designer,
Edsinger—a strong sense that Domo is a social creature. Edsinger finds himself
vacillating back and forth between viewing Domo as a creature or as being merely a
device that he has designed.
For Edsinger, this sequence—experiencing Domo as having desires and then
talking himself out of the idea—becomes familiar. For even though he is
Domo’s programmer, the robot’s behaviour has not become dull or predictable.
Elements of Embodied Cognitive Science 249