Why scientists want robots to learn to feel pain

 

Robots are one step closer to being able to experience an essential human feeling: pain.

Researchers in Germany are currently creating a "nervous system" that would mimic a pain response in robots, allowing them to quickly react and avoid harmful situations.

"Pain is a system that protects us,” researcher Johannes Kuehn told a conference of engineers last week. “When we evade from the source of pain, it helps us not get hurt.”

The researchers programmed their robot to experience a "hierarchy" of pain through a variety of different stimuli, such as blunt force or heat. Depending on the threat, such as a harsh movement or intense heat, the robot is programmed to retract from the danger. The more dangerous it registers the threat to be, the faster the robot will retract and the longer it will avoid the hazardous force.

 "A robot needs to be able to detect and classify unforeseen physical states and disturbances, rate the potential damage they may cause to it, and initiate appropriate countermeasures, i.e., reflexes," the research paper states.

Kuehn said a built-in pain response could protect robots potentially operating heavy machinery or other tools in factories from potential harm, thus saving companies from the fallout of damages. It also means a better safety environment for human workers, who often work side-by-side with robots on the factory floor.

                     

It's the synthesis of a pain sensation that encourages robots to experience a sense of self-preservation. Robots built to automatically detect human collisions have been around for a while: Researchers from Stanford and University of Rome-La Sapeinza created a reflexive robot arm that detects and avoids collision with humans in 2011. But to equip these robots with a nervous system forces them to prioritize avoidance of their own pain, thus programming them to avoid destroying themselves as well as avoiding collision with humans, according to Keuhn. This will trigger different reactions in the robot than just crash avoidance.