Be it in assembly lines, the military or in surgery rooms in a hospital, today’s robots can perform highly complex tasks. The research of the day is to find robots that can work in team with us humans, also known as teamworkbots. They are supposed to observe human activity and try to understand the intentions. They will ask questions, discuss and evaluate possibilities. If they know the goal with a specific action and can predict the next step then they can also help us in a proactive way. This research area includes not only technicians and IT skill, it highly relies on psychologists, cognitive scientists and neuroscientists. It is important that the teamworkbot can adapt to the situation when it changes and change view and rethink similar to how the GPS navigator rethinks when we don’t follow the way that is suggested.
Will they make a robot that can figure out on its own, without being told, what to do?
Here is an early example:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=US&v=JTQQVvGeXfM]
Joint Action Science and Technology or JAST is an European Union funded project that is working with teamworkbots.
