The Life Scientific: Helen Hastie

About this episode

Helen Hastie discusses the future of human-robot interaction and the potential for robots to become trusted teammates.

What if robots of the future weren’t just clever machines, performing tasks in isolation, but trusted teammates you could have a chat with? That could respond naturally to conversational cues and even explain their work? Making this relationship a reality is a focus for Helen Hastie, Professor of Human-Robot Interaction and Head of the School of Informatics at the University of Edinburgh. Helen’s career has taken her from developing early dialogue systems - the ancestors of today’s generative AI - to working on sophisticated bots that can serve coffee with a side of small-talk, teach struggling kids with empathy, or provide calm and confident decisions as triage nurses. She’s also driven some of the UK’s flagship robotics initiatives, including as co-lead of the National Robotarium. Talking to Professor Jim Al-Khalili - who reveals he was once told off for rudeness by an early chatbot - Helen explains her hopes for useful, reliable and ultimately trustworthy robots; machines that aren’t just in our world but a welcome part of it.

People in this episode

Host: Jim Al-Khalili

Guest: Helen Hastie

Topics covered

• human-robot interaction
• AI development
• robotics
• trust in technology
• education technology

Keywords

• robots
• human-robot interaction
• AI
• dialogue systems
• robotics initiatives

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: University of Edinburgh, National Robotarium, BBC World Service

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