Toward a Universal Concept of Artificial Personality: Implementing Robotic Personality in a Kinova Arm

TL;DR

This work addresses the challenge of creating universal robotic personality for non-humanoid platforms within Industry 4.0. It introduces a task- and platform-agnostic cognitive architecture based on the Conscientiousness, Extroversion, and Agreeableness (CEA) taxonomy, realized on a Kinova Jaco2 arm via a BERT-based Personality Generator, memory systems, Prospection, and separate speech/gesture interfaces. The study shows that distinct personality traits can be perceived by humans from a robotic arm, with language enhancing discrimination in perception, thereby validating cross-platform applicability and the role of verbal communication. The results support the potential of universal, personality-driven HRI architectures to improve collaboration between humans and industrial robots, paving the way for broader adoption in Industry 4.0 settings.

Abstract

The fundamental role of personality in shaping interactions is increasingly being exploited in robotics. A carefully designed robotic personality has been shown to improve several key aspects of Human-Robot Interaction (HRI). However, the fragmentation and rigidity of existing approaches reveal even greater challenges when applied to non-humanoid robots. On one hand, the state of the art is very dispersed; on the other hand, Industry 4.0 is moving towards a future where humans and industrial robots are going to coexist. In this context, the proper design of a robotic personality can lead to more successful interactions. This research takes a first step in that direction by integrating a comprehensive cognitive architecture built upon the definition of robotic personality - validated on humanoid robots - into a robotic Kinova Jaco2 arm. The robot personality is defined through the cognitive architecture as a vector in the three-dimensional space encompassing Conscientiousness, Extroversion, and Agreeableness, affecting how actions are executed, the action selection process, and the internal reaction to environmental stimuli. Our main objective is to determine whether users perceive distinct personalities in the robot, regardless of its shape, and to understand the role language plays in shaping these perceptions. To achieve this, we conducted a user study comprising 144 sessions of a collaborative game between a Kinova Jaco2 arm and participants, where the robot's behavior was influenced by its assigned personality. Furthermore, we compared two conditions: in the first, the robot communicated solely through gestures and action choices, while in the second, it also utilized verbal interaction.

Figures (6)

• Figure 1: Marvin the paranoid android, and Bender the aggressive robot.
• Figure 2: Cognitive Software Architecture for the Kinova Jaco2 robotic arm. The diagram identifies the cognitive components in blue, the perception components in green, and the action components in red.
• Figure 3: The figure displays a snapshot of the plan retrieved from the Prospection process for a Conscientious and Disagreeable robot, showing the selection of actions, their assessments, and updates to the Episodic Memory. The reader may observe the conscientiousness level (in blue) and the agreeableness level (in purple) and their responses to different actions. The discrepancy between the green dashed lines (representing expected outcomes) and the solid blue/purple lines (depicting actual outcomes) highlights the difference between the anticipated rewards and the actual results.
• Figure 4: The three plots show the three-dimensional trajectory of the robot involved in the implemented task. The plots highlight the differences between the two extremes of each trait, respectively Conscientiousness, Agreeableness, and Extroversion. In each plot, the trajectory of the negative pole is displayed in green, and the positive pole in red.
• Figure 5: Effect of a specific personality pole on the interaction. From left to right. Top: Agreeable, Extrovert, Conscientious personality. Bottom: Disagreeable, Introvert, Unscrupolous personality.