Image: Flickr/J. Nathan Mathias
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One look at promotional materials for these kind of bots makes the target audience obvious (perhaps with the exception of a Japanese firm’s robo-rental scheme). Barabas said that the robot used for the People’s Bot project—a Double Robotics model—sells for $2500, not including the iPad.They wanted to democratise the idea of telepresence a little, and extend its benefits to more people. How it technically works is quite simple: the bot user signs in and their face appears on the screen, so they can chat to other guests face to face while potentially sitting on the other side of the world. The advantage over more common technologies like Skype is that they can also control the bot—they “walk” using arrow keys, so can approach different people as they please, rather than waiting for a conversation partner to accept a call.People's Bot scholar Rodrigo Ochigame met Joselyn in the hall, learning they both work with Native Americans & tech pic.twitter.com/tjaBSZz8yV
— J. Nathan Matias (@natematias) April 28, 2014
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The general idea is that the bot allows people who aren’t in the area or can’t afford a ticket to go to the event, at least for a little while. But while that sounds very appealing for would-be attendees—a ticket for all days of CHI this year cost up to a wince-inducing $1400—I asked if conference organisers wouldn’t consider this kind of bot scheme as unfairly gaming the system.Barabas said they were unsure how the idea would be received, but that CHI had been quite open to the idea. “Another thing we’re really needing to think about is respecting the policies of conferences in terms of recording events in terms of things that are closed,” she said. They’ve written up a user license that outlines what people are allowed to do during their face time.The main application of the People’s Bot is to enable informal learning opportunities, and while they’re starting with conferences, it could be expanded to other events and networking opportunities. “Once we leave university or secondary school, we don’t get a lot of opportunities for formalised learning to happen, but there are a lot of really rich learning opportunities where people come together and share ideas,” said Barabas.The point is to maximise inclusivity at events that require live interaction—otherwise, you could just livestream the goings-on. I wondered if at some point we’d end up with no-one physically attending events and just an army of bots bashing wheels, but Barabas said she didn’t think telepresence would ever replace human meetings. “I use Skype and telepresence technology on a daily basis and it’s still not the same as face-to-face interaction,” she said. It’s really intended for people who can’t be at a particular event.“At the same time it’s also not necessarily less valuable than a face-to-face event,” she continued. For one, it’s a pretty good ice-breaker to walk into a room as a robot, and would no doubt make breaking into those closed circles of people who already know each other a little less awkward—or at least so ridiculous as to be impossible to ignore.Will Franklin from the Guardian joins the #chi2014 via @ThePeoplesBot pic.twitter.com/BbkuOF3ep0
— J. Nathan Matias (@natematias) April 28, 2014