Inside The Lab: How Can Robots Improve Our Lives?

Robots are often designed to do specific automated tasks, like deliver food or manufacture cars.

But in order to have them interact well with humans, they need to be designed to act more intuitively and engagingly.

University of Chicago computer scientist Sarah Sebo is programming robots to give empathetic responses and perform nonverbal social cues like nodding to better build trust and rapport with humans. The goal is to develop robots that can improve performance in human-robot teams, such as enhancing learning outcomes for children.

To find out more, we spoke to Sebo, assistant professor of computer science, and her graduate students Alex Wuqi Zhang and Lauren Wright.