Smart Robots To Work With Children To Greatly Improve Human-machine Communication

The European Research Council (ERC) has awarded Professor Angelo Cangelosi, co-director of the Manchester Centre for Robotics and AI, a total of euro 2.5million as part of the eTALK project. The research team will combine expertise in AI and psychology to focus on the fact that smart machines still only understand about third of the meaning of human language. The project will take direct inspiration from the way children and adults use and learn abstract words and use methods from AI and psychology to develop a new generation of robots capable of communicating with people about internal feelings, numbers, and other abstract words.