On first name terms with robots

A white robot with a black screen on its chest stands in front of a table and looks into the camera with a friendly face. A small, white and orange robot is sitting on the table.
FAPS robots Pepper (in the front) and Nao.FAU/Boris Mijat

Research consortium investigates robots’ potential social skills

Robots and AI are growing in importance – in industry, services, medicine and in private settings. The Bavarian Research Foundation and a Bavarian consortium from industry will jointly invest almost four million euros in the coming two years in the research consortium FORSocialRobots that is aimed at significantly improving the social skills of automated systems and robots. Prof. Dr. Jörg Franke, head of the Institute for Factory Automation and Production Systems at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU), will assume the role of speaker for the research project set to run over three years. Read more …