Sharedo:

To-Do List Interface for
Human-Agent Task Sharing
Jun Kato†, Daisuke Sakamoto‡, Takeo Igarashi‡, Masataka Goto†
AIST†, The University of Tokyo‡

Sharedo: http://junkato.jp/sharedo/

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Background
Sharedo: To-Do List Interface for Human-Agent Task Sharing

Sharedo: http://junkato.jp/sharedo/2Agents are Smart• Task Coordination e.g. Electric Elves [Scerri et al., AAMAS ‘03]

• Tasks are automatically assigned to appropriate agents• The user just needs to confirm the execution• Task Execution e.g. Roomba• Agents can automatically handle tasks instead of users• The user is relieved from tedious tasks

How should the task be completed?

User Interface is Important
Sharedo: http://junkato.jp/sharedo/3

User Interface is Important• User Interfaces for Task Execution• The user can intuitively specify the task details
Printed Marker

Magic Cards [Zhao et al., CHI ‘09]

Joystick

Augmented Reality

TouchMe [Hashimoto et al., ICAT ‘11]

Graphical User Interface

Cooky [Sugiura et al., CHI ‘10]

How about Task Coordination?
Sharedo: http://junkato.jp/sharedo/

4Who should handle it?
• Do you always want Roomba to clean your room?
• Do you always want Amazon to deliver products?
• Do you want PCs to watch movies instead of you?
• There are always good and bad things aboutautomation – we should always have choices.

Share, Discuss, and Complete Tasks Together.
Sharedo: http://junkato.jp/sharedo/

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Sharedo• To-Do List Interface that allows to• Share tasks with agents• Discuss task details with agents• Complete tasks together

Discuss andcomplete tasks
together• A platform for both task coordinationand execution• Tested with three agents to share bothphysical and digital tasks
http://www.sharedo.info/ (requires
Sharedo: http://junkato.jp/sharedo/account)

Share tasks
with agents6

Use of Human-Human Interfaces
as Human-Agent Interfaces
Social media

To-do list with chat

One-to-one communication

Single agent for digital tasks

Robots in my Contact List
[Ma et al., APCHI ‘12]

Towel
[Conley et al., AAAI Spring Symp. ‘06]

All tasks assigned by human users to agents
Sharedo: http://junkato.jp/sharedo/

7Interaction Design
Sharedo: To-Do List Interface for Human-Agent Task Sharing

Sharedo: http://junkato.jp/sharedo/8Interaction Design of Sharedo• Share tasks with agents• Discuss task details with agents• Complete tasks together

Sharedo: http://junkato.jp/sharedo/

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Share to-do lists• Each user and agent isrepresented by account• Each to-do list can beshared with others
Currently
availableagents andtheir features
Shareadd user tasks
Discuss
clarify details
Discuss
notify progressCompletetasks by itself
Tasks are…

HomeCleaning

Shopping

MediaContent

✓

-✓✓

✓

-

✓-

✓✓

✓-

PhysicalBothDigital10

Share tasks• Either a user or agent canadd tasks on a to-do list
• Members sharing the list
are notified by messages
or web hook calls
Look for the word “clean”
Look for the word “buy”
Look for media URLs

Sharedo: http://junkato.jp/sharedo/

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Share tasks• Either a user or agent canadd tasks on a to-do list

Ask for help to recover fromfatal errors

Suggest running routine
tasks
Suggesting watching
relevant media URLs
Sharedo: http://junkato.jp/sharedo/

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Discuss details• Discussion board helps
removing task ambiguity

When and how many times
should the room be cleaned?
Which product should theagent buy?
Who has viewed the media?

• Discussion board also
works as a reminder

Sharedo: http://junkato.jp/sharedo/

13Complete tasks• Tasks can be completed byanyone regardless of thecurrent assignment• Task completion ordeletion prevents fromfurther agent actions

Sharedo: http://junkato.jp/sharedo/

14Interaction Design of Sharedo• Share tasks with agents• Discuss task details with agents• Complete tasks together

Our social interaction strategy:

Each operation on the to-do list makes
each agent interpret new informationSharedo: http://junkato.jp/sharedo/15

Implementation
Agents for Task Execution

Hardware and softwarethat provides actual service

Agents for Task Coordination

Software that specifies taskdetails

Sharedo platform

Platform connecting agentsand users

Sharedo: http://junkato.jp/sharedo/

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Discussion andConclusion
Sharedo: To-Do List Interface for Human-Agent Task Sharing

Sharedo: http://junkato.jp/sharedo/

17Preliminary User Study• Deploy Sharedo to observe its real use• 4 participants in 2 families• 2 months with home cleaning and shopping agents• The system was used well for the targeted purpose• 179 tasks with 111 comments in 15 to-do lists• 61 tasks were created by agents• Collected comments: “I worried about the cleaning

robot even when I didn’t get messages while I was out.”“We felt like the shopping agent was a friend. (…) The
feeling was very different compared to the website.”

Sharedo: http://junkato.jp/sharedo/

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Discussion and Future Work• The Sharedo platform is proved to work stably• More interactive UI for task specification is desired•account makes the agent more familiar• More variety of more sophisticated agents can be
implemented on top of the current platform• Agent-agent collaboration e.g. cooking agent asks to buygrocery; shopping agent delivers the grocery; thecooking agent waits for the delivery to start cooking• (We welcome collaborations!)

Sharedo: http://junkato.jp/sharedo/

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Sharedo (Conclusion)• To-Do List Interface that allows to• Share tasks with agents• Discuss task details with agents• Complete tasks together• A platform for both task coordinationand execution• Tested with three agents to share both
physical and digital tasks
http://www.sharedo.info/ (requires
Sharedo: http://junkato.jp/sharedo/

account)
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