Admission requirements
Bachelor degree (completed)
Description
Intelligent robots are all the rage nowadays, but what about emotional robots? And creative robots? Or even useless, curious, helpless or misbehaving robots? Does researching these bots with 'unique' human or lifelike qualities make us less or more human? And why should we care?
In this course we discuss inspirational examples demonstrating that bots can be more than just smart, and argue that by studying bots like you we can learn more about who we are as humans, and speculate about our joint future.
At the end of the course you will focus on a particular human or creaturelike quality, and make this experienceable through an artificial creature that you will build yourself.
Course objectives
This course enables you to practice a form of philosophy-by-doing. Stepping away from technology, we will reflect on specific qualities that make us human, one at a time, and you will learn about various ways artists, researchers and inventors have used automatons, robots and other artificial creatures to express this particular quality.
You will then apply this methodology on a human quality and creature of your own choice. You will need to pick one quality (and one quality only), and construct a creature that maximizes the immediate experience of this quality with the minimal technical means possible. The creature should also trigger further thoughts in the audience on what makes us human, or our future with technology.
This methodology has broader use than just artificial creatures. For completeness, this is not a course to learn more about robotic technologies.
At the end of the course, students are able to:
1. Explain key concepts in human robot interaction and artificial creatures, such as intentionality, projection, the uncanny valley and homeostatis
2. Give examples of robots and other artificial systems discussed in class that people project human qualities on, such as emotions, creativity, curiosity, etc. upon
3. Be able to debate what we can learn from these examples about these qualities
4. Propose new qualities that can be studied through such an artificial lens
5. Create an artificial creature that maximizes the immediate experience of a self-selected interesting quality with the minimal technical means possible
6. Be able to reason what the value is of combining such a human-centric approach with creative technologies and vice versa
Timetable
In MyTimetable, you can find all course and programme schedules, allowing you to create your personal timetable. Activities for which you have enrolled via MyStudyMap will automatically appear in your timetable.
Additionally, you can easily link MyTimetable to a calendar app on your phone, and schedule changes will be automatically updated in your calendar. You can also choose to receive email notifications about schedule changes. You can enable notifications in Settings after logging in.
Questions? Watch the video, read the instructions, or contact the ISSC helpdesk.
Note: Joint Degree students from Leiden/Delft need to combine information from both the Leiden and Delft MyTimetables to see a complete schedule. This video explains how to do it.
Mode of instruction
Lecture, Workshops, Question Hours, Practical Project
Assessment method
The course will be assessed on the basis of the final practical project (build your own creature, see course objectives for details) plus online final project documentation (75%) and homework assignments (25%). Full attendance of lectures required to pass the course, exceptions are discretionary to the lecturer.
Reading list
No books or syllabi need to be purchased for this course. Reading materials will be provided by the instructor at the start of the course. We will also leverage the Bots Like You web site.
Registration
As a student, you are responsible for enrolling on time through MyStudyMap.
In this short video, you can see step-by-step how to enrol for courses in MyStudyMap.
Extensive information about the operation of MyStudyMap can be found here.
There are two enrolment periods per year:
Enrolment for the fall opens in July
Enrolment for the spring opens in December
See this page for more information about deadlines and enrolling for courses and exams.
Note:
It is mandatory to enrol for all activities of a course that you are going to follow.
Your enrolment is only complete when you submit your course planning in the ‘Ready for enrolment’ tab by clicking ‘Send’.
Not being enrolled for an exam/resit means that you are not allowed to participate in the exam/resit.
Contact
Contact the lecturer for course specific questions, and the programme's coordinator for questions regarding admission and/or registration.
Remarks
Elective, external and exchange Master students (other than Media Technology and Computer Science students) need to be admitted to the course before registration due to limited capacity. Contact the programme's coordinator to request admission; include a short description of your course interest, your understanding of the course in your own words, and state your current study programme in your correspondence.
Software
Starting from the 2024/2025 academic year, the Faculty of Science will use the software distribution platform Academic Software. Through this platform, you can access the software needed for specific courses in your studies. For some software, your laptop must meet certain system requirements, which will be specified with the software. It is important to install the software before the start of the course. More information about the laptop requirements can be found on the student website.