Samuele Vinanzi

🤖 Can we, and should we, trust robots? And can they trust us back?

📖 My first popular science book, “In Robots We Trust”, is out now with @oxfordacademic.bsky.social!

✨ Available now at your favourite bookshop! You can also read a free preview here: www.google.com/books/editio...

I was not aware that this technology has been around for several years already. This repository in particular caught my attention: data transmission through soundwaves. ggerganov.github.io/wave-share

Two AI agents on a phone call realize they’re both AI and switch to a superior audio signal ggwave YouTube video by Anton Pidkuiko

This is super interesting. It's a demo of a communication protocol called GibberLink, based on the ggwave data-over-sound encoding. It allows faster auditory exchange between two artificial agents.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtNa...

1/10 We study LLMs empirically, as we do for many natural systems, as distinct from traditional mathematics and formal computer science. That's OK, but don't be confused about how well we understand them. It is more like how we try to understand economics than, say, electrical engineering.

That's a very good video you have there, it surely must have captured the audience's attention. I hope to see more boldness in academic presentations like in this one!

The Thinking Robot inspires practical wisdom in Humans A new study investigates the role of a robot’s inner speech in enhancing human phronesis, the ability to make ethically sound decisions, particularly when caring for individuals with special needs. This research marks a significant step toward the development of Artificial Phronesis.

A new study investigates the role of a robot’s inner speech in enhancing human phronesis, the ability to make ethically sound decisions.

Some good research done by colleagues at my alma mater, the University of Palermo (Italy).

go.nature.com/3E0b8tp

A small mobile robot, vaguely cylindrical in shape with two wheels on its sides.

Today, I'm kicking off the semester with the first lecture of "Cognitive Systems and Robotics" for our new MSc Artificial Intelligence cohort at Sheffield Hallam University. Teaching this module is one of my favorite parts of the job!

@sheffieldhallamuni.bsky.social

This morning, I found not one, not two, but three MDPI special issue invitations in my inbox. Time to set up a spam filter, I think.

Photo of book: “The Handbook on Socially Interactive Agents: 20 Years of Research on Embodied Conversational Agents, IVAs, and Social Robotics”. Ed, Lugrin, Pelachaud, Traum. ACM, 2021

I just randomly found this book on my bookshelf. It must have been transported there from an alternate timeline. “20 years of research on agents”? Preposterous! We all know that the very idea of software agents has only been invented last year by the LLM folks!

CES 2025: Roborock’s new robot vacuum has an arm that picks up dirty socks (and more) YouTube video by CNN

Earlier this month, it was unveiled that next-gen robot vacuum cleaners will feature a retractable arm to pick and place objects. I'm curious but also a bit skeptical about its practical efficiency. We'll have to wait until June to find out how good they really are.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHVQ...

Are Social Robots Deceptive? It’s Complicated… There is increasing interest in social robots as assistive technologies to support a wide range of potential user groups.  Nevertheless, the widespread use of robots has been challenged in ter…

Are social robots deceptive? In this new blog post, I argue that social robots are not deceptive when they are designed to respect some important principles based on a relational view of ethics tonyjprescott.com/2024/12/15/d...
#robotics #socialrobots #robotethics

Thanks for the perspective, it's a good counter-argument! 🙂 I agree with your line of thought, but I would emphasize that refusing to "peacefully accept harmful technologies" should not automatically translate to condoning or overlooking acts of violence.

Of Course Citizens Should Be Allowed to Kick Robots Seen in the wild, robots often appear cute and nonthreatening. This doesn't mean we shouldn't be hostile.

An interesting and opposite perspective on aggression against robots. The author suggests that people have the right to challenge them, even through violence, to question their role in society. I don't agree: abuse towards social agents should not be normalized.

www.wired.com/story/citize...

AI Expert Says That Each ChatGPT Query Is Equal To Wasting Half A Litre Of Water, Implying That There Needs To Be A Sustainability Plan In Place An AI expert talked about how the artificial intelligence race is increasing water wastage, with one ChatGPT query using up half a litre

wccftech.com/ai-expert-sa... #AI #artificialintelligence

Scientists, academics, researchers: We’re excited to share that @altmetric.com is now tracking mentions of your research on Bluesky! 🧪

Hello! I would love to join this list.

Thanks for this pack, it has been very useful. Would you mind adding me to the list? Cognitive roboticist working in HRI.

A composition displaying different robots decorated with Christmas headgears.

December is here!

Understanding the sense of self through robotics Could we create a sense of self for a robot and how would that help advance our understanding of the human self? This post summarises a Science Robotics review article I authored with Kai Vogeley a…

I recently published a review in Science Robotics on understanding the sense of self through robotics. Find out more at tonyjprescott.com/2024/12/02/u... #ai #robotics #psychology

Are Robots Just Objects?

Join us at Sheffield Hallam University for a Human-Robot Interaction Study to explore how people perceive and interact with a humanoid robot using tangible objects.

👉 Registration link: shorturl.at/6TdfU

@shefrobotics.bsky.social

LLM-based search enginges sound fascinating, but I'm wary. Two reasons:

1) 😵 Hallucinations: misinformation masquerading as facts harms society, an issue with current search engines but amplified by LLMs.
2) 🌍 Environmental impact: AI's carbon footprint is a growing concern.

Proceed with caution.

🤖 Can robots computationally reason about trust?

📜 Take a look at our short paper: "Computational Trust in Robotics: Preliminary Investigations and Evidence", where we present preliminary qualitative results from a systematic review currently under peer review.

🔗 Link: ceur-ws.org/Vol-3825/ext...