Dr. Masoumeh Mansouri is a lecturer of the School of Computer Science at the University of Birmingham. Her research is primarily related to Knowledge Representation and Reasoning (KR&R) for Robotics. She has focused on hybrid methods that integrate automated task and motion planning, scheduling, as well as temporal and spatial reasoning. She is also interested in the ethical and social implications of technology in general and robotics/AI in particular; as well as topics at the intersection of culture, gender theory and robotics.
In the attempt to make robots culturally diverse, social robotics research is overwhelmed by cultural stereotypes. Many researchers introduce concepts such as Culturally Robust Robots to account for the dynamic and flexible nature of culture. These concepts are grounded on an implicit assumption: that current AI methods are epistemologically adequate to represent and reason about “culture”. This paper questions that assumption by looking at two knowledge representation and reasoning (KR&R) methods used in intelligent robotics; argue for the inadequacy of current methods; and call for a critical revision of the use of KR&R in social robotics.
