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Awareness in Robotics: An Early Perspective from the Viewpoint of the EIC Pathfinder Challenge “Awareness Inside”

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European Robotics Forum 2024 (ERF 2024)

Abstract

While consciousness has been historically a heavily debated topic, awareness had less success in raising the interest of scholars. However, more and more researchers are getting interested in answering questions concerning what awareness is and how it can be artificially generated. The landscape is rapidly evolving, with multiple voices and interpretations of the concept being conceived and techniques being developed. The goal of this paper is to summarize and discuss the ones among these voices connected with projects funded by the EIC Pathfinder Challenge “Awareness Inside” callwithin Horizon Europe, designed specifically for fostering research on natural and synthetic awareness. In this perspective, we dedicate special attention to challenges and promises of applying synthetic awareness in robotics, as the development of mature techniques in this new field is expected to have a special impact on generating more capable and trustworthy embodied systems.

This is a shortened version of the full-length manuscript [12].

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Notes

  1. 1.

    More thorough descriptions are available in the full-length manuscript [12].

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Acknowledgements

This work is supported by the EU EIC projects: SYMBIOTIK (grant 101071147), ASTOUND (grant 101071191), SymAware (grant 101070802), CAVAA (grant 10039052), EMERGE (grant 101070918), METATOOL (grant 101070940), SUST(AI)N (grant 101071179), and VALAWAI (grant 101070930).

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Correspondence to Cosimo Della Santina .

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Della Santina, C. et al. (2024). Awareness in Robotics: An Early Perspective from the Viewpoint of the EIC Pathfinder Challenge “Awareness Inside”. In: Secchi, C., Marconi, L. (eds) European Robotics Forum 2024. ERF 2024. Springer Proceedings in Advanced Robotics, vol 32. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-76424-0_20

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