Communicating with “Haru”: From Prototype to Experimental Design
Channel: Eleanor Sandry
Date: 22/05/2020

This video was recorded for the Human-Machine Preconference, Open Questions in Human-Machine Communication, of the International Communication Association conference 2020. The full paper underlying the presentation was written in collaboration with Randy Gomez and Keisuke Nakamura, both from Honda Research Institute (HRI) Japan, which is where Haru was designed and developed.

The notes for this talk are available here: https://zigzaggery.edublogs.org/2020/05/22/communicating-with-haru-from-prototype-to-experimental-design/ these act as a pretty good transcript (and may well work better than captions through YouTube, although I will try to set these up as well).

First, I analyse the development of Haru beta, highlighting how the design process privileged particular ideas about communication. Then I explore alternative understandings of Haru as a communicator. Finally, I outline how perspectives on communication suggest ways to continue Haru’s development and could also frame future research with this robot.