Please and Thank You: Pentagon's DARPA Teaches Robots Manners

Researchers developed a "cognitive-computational model of human norms in a representation that can be coded into machines," according to DARPA's website. Further, a smart algorithm has been developed that "allows machines to learn norms in unfamiliar situations drawing on human data," the weapons developing agency said. If smart robots are ever to become "trustworthy collaborators with human partners," they will need to obey basic intuitive norms about human interaction. According to the Pentagon's account, they've completed a significant -- if mostly confidential -- breakthrough in philosophy: training robots to recognize value judgments like good and bad, right and wrong. These human faculties are critical for until-now strictly human tasks like planning, setting goals and organizing, and will be incorporated, at least on a basic level, into the robots of the future.