Alumni Gazette

David Lu ’07 (T5) has not yet seen Westworld, HBO’s hit television series in which android hosts populate a Wild West–themed park and cater to the whims of human guests. Lu’s omission is notable, given his billing as chief robot programmer in the spring 2015 theatrical premiere of Sky Sky Sky by Liza Birkenmeier.

The play, like Westworld, raised questions about artificial intelligence, human-robot relationships, agency, and autonomy. But unlike the TV show—which features human actors playing robots who think they are humans—one of the play’s main actors was, in fact, a robot.

Dubbed Harris T. Robot, it was a PR2 model, a common robotics research platform that runs on the open source robot operating system (ROS) and is used by countless industries, universities, and companies. About five feet tall, weighing 400 pounds, and with two arms, PR2 is not exactly Anthony Hopkins. Still, Lu believes that the performing arts, especially theater, offer a way to explore the potential to enhance human-robot interactions using current robotics technology.

“With theater, we can construct controlled scenarios and put the robots in, allowing them to participate in much the same way human actors do,” he says. The job of professional actors, after all, is to convince others that they are something they’re not. Using acting techniques, might robots convince people that they are social, or even conscious?

“If I’m in a production of Hamlet, I can’t actually change myself into Hamlet. But I can do everything in my power to make my actions look consistent with those of the Prince of Denmark,” says Lu. Maybe it’s the same thing with robots. “We can’t get robots to be real, human-like, emotional creatures, but within the scope of theater we can have them perform actions that make it seem to the audience as if they are.”

Sky, Sky, Sky was the result of a six-year collaboration between computer scientists and performing artists (including the play’s director, Annamaria Pileggi) as part of Lu’s PhD work on contextualized robot navigation at Washington University in St. Louis. Set in 2061, it centers on a character named Joan, an older woman who suffers a heart attack and needs the assistance of a robot as her medical caregiver.

Lu believes there is also something special about using real robots in live theater, as opposed to digital droids or actors playing robots on screen. “The fact that it’s a chunk of plastic with whirring fans and flickering sensors—that part gets a visceral response from the audience.”

Understanding that response is a key part of Lu’s current work as a roboticist at Bossa Nova Robotics, a Pittsburgh-based start-up that specializes in building robots that work around people. Lu programs robots that scan the shelves of large grocery and retail stores to track what’s out of stock.

“Like the theater work, it’s all about how people perceive the robot,” he says. “This robot is in a store with people who had no idea they were going to see a robot that day. Every move that robot makes is going to have broad implications for what people think of robots from then on.”

Most robots, for example, are programmed to get from point A to point B in the most efficient manner, even if there’s a person in the way. Whereas humans understand the concept of personal space, most robots are not concerned with such decorum. Lu’s work entails programming robots with contextual information to improve human-robot interactions. “The idea of being able to help shape people’s impressions of robots is really what drives me,” he says. “I want people to not be afraid of robots. They’re completely harmless.”

Could Harris T. Robot be a gateway to Wall-E, Skynet, or other fictionalized versions of self-aware artificial intelligence?

Lu demurs. “There’s no greater intelligence in these robots. I might personify my robots, but I’m under no false pretenses about their abilities.”

Instead, when it comes to robots like PR2, Lu likens himself to a stage parent: “I’m not the one on stage, but I am making sure that [the robot] does well—and when it screws up, that reflects on me. But if it succeeds, then I can sit back proudly.”