How we interact with robots reveals parts of who we are

Engineers are studying human behaviour in great detail in order to make robots that not only look like us, but can also understand us and interact with us in socially acceptable ways. These studies are teaching us many things about our own human nature, as my recent paper explains. The robots in films like Blade Runner are very humanlike, with thoughts and feelings, motives and desires. But making robots that are just like us is a huge challenge. Technical limitations make it currently impossible to make robots identical to humans, although Hiroshi Ishiguru has made a geminoid (a humanlike robot that looks like himself), and David Hanson has made a number of impressive android heads.