Why can’t robots fully measure up to people?

One argument for why robots will never fully measure up to people is because they lack human-like social skills.
    But researchers are experimenting with new methods to give robots social skills to better interact with humans. Two new studies provide evidence of progress in this kind of research.
    One experiment was carried out by researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MIT. The team developed a machine learning system for self-driving vehicles that is designed to learn the social characteristics of other drivers.
    The researchers studied driving situations to learn how other drivers on the road were likely to behave. Since not all human drivers act the same way, the data was meant to teach the driverless car to avoid dangerous situations.
    The researchers say the technology uses tools borrowed from the field of social psychology. In this experiment, scientists created a system that attempted to decide whether a person’s driving style is more selfish or selfless. In road tests, self-driving vehicles equipped with the system improved their ability to predict what other drivers would do by up to 25 percent.
    In one test, the self-driving car was observed making a left-hand turn. The study found the system could cause the vehicle to wait before making the turn if it predicted the oncoming drivers acted selfishly and might be unsafe. But when oncoming vehicles were judged to be selfless, the self-driving car could make the turn without delay because it saw less risk of unsafe behavior.
    Wilko Schwarting is the lead writer of a report describing the research. He told MIT News that any robot working with or operating around humans needs to be able to effectively learn their intentions to better understand their behavior.
    Another social experiment involved a game competition between humans and a robot. Researchers from Carnegie Mellon University tested whether a robot’s "trash talk" would affect humans playing in a game against the machine. To "trash talk" is to talk about someone in a negative or insulting way usually to get them to make a mistake.
    A humanoid robot, named Pepper, was programmed to say things to a human opponent like "I have to say you are a terrible player." Another robot statement was, "Over the course of the game, your playing has become confused."
    The study involved each of the humans playing a game with the robot 35 different times. The game was called Guards and Treasures which is used to study decision making. The study found that players criticized by the robot generally performed worse in the games than humans receiving praise.