Abstract
Robotics poses a number of formidable challenges, one of which is interacting with people using the same interaction channels used by people when communicating with each other. Building such "social robots", which can interpret and produce the full gamut of human communication, is at the moment nigh impossible. Luckily, robotics researchers are helped by a surprising willingness of people to treat technology as if it is human, making the building of social robots just a little more achievable. Professor Belpaeme will show how his research group and teams around the world are working towards robots that are social, how these robots tap into our primitive social brain and how they can be deployed to do provide support in health care, therapeutic settings and education.
