Tiago Guerreiro, Principal Investigator of the CMU Portugal Exploratory Project “Exploring the Transfer of Agency to Older Adults in HRI” was the guest of the RTP2 “Vamos Beber Um Café E Falar Sobre Isso” (“Let’s grab a coffee and talk about it”), an interview TV show. The show is based on an informal conversation between the host and a guest about a specific topic while sharing a cup of coffee.
“Exploring the Transfer of Agency to Older Adults in HRI” is being developed between LASIGE/Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade de Lisboa and the Human- Computer Interaction Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, with the collaboration of IST-ID. This research aims to explore challenges and concerns related to the aging of the population and how robots can assist elderly people to live more independently at home or active in a care home.
The project wants to explore the transfer of agency to older adults in human-robot interaction to empower them. How can we shift the agency that robots have to people, and help them do things that they value? One possible example would be having a robot in a grandson’s home that the grandmother can control, while sitting in her chair: looking at what the toddler is doing, having a chat about school, and offering milk and cookies through this skillful proxy. This would allow the elder to keep interacting with the family, even being away physically and not just having a conversation.
What do people value, and how can robots support them in achieving their goals? How can older adults’ control or program a robot to perform tasks? The vision is to advance research on human-robot interaction to facilitate a new relationship between elders and assistive robots.
Watch the interview to know more (in Portuguese):
Also on RTP PLAY: https://www.rtp.pt/play/p9434/vamos-beber-um-cafe-e-falar-sobre-isso
