Gary Smith is currently a PhD student at the Edinburgh Centre for Robotics. He has a background in computer science and philosophy, holding masters degrees in both subjects. His main research interest is in combining logical, probabilistic and machine learning approaches for intelligent robotics. He is also interested in embodied cognition, predictive processing, robotics for social good, and fairness in AI.
Mark L. Ornelas is currently a Ph.D student in the philosophy department at the University of Cincinnati. He has a background in social psychology, cognitive science, and philosophy. He holds a master’s degree in cognitive science from the University of Edinburgh and is also pursuing a masters degree in psychology at Cincinnati alongside his PhD. He is also interested in enactivism, ecological psychology, predictive processing, moral psychology, and applied Ethics.
Once we have an idea of what culturally sustainable robotic behaviour looks like, we face the problem of how to get a robot to actually behave as such. We argue that for a robot to exhibit behaviour that conforms to the cultural values of the human environment they operate in, they must be equipped with the capability to mind read. Our argument follows from the observation that cultural norms can only be correctly applied when certain conditions are met, and that those conditions can refer to the internal states of the agents taking part in the interaction. Consequently, for an artificial agent to correctly apply a cultural norm, it must infer the internal states of other agents. If a cultural norm is incorrectly applied, then a human agent could consider the resulting behaviour inappropriate. This renders mind reading essential for the production of behaviour that respects human cultural expectations.
