In this human-meets-machine episode, Christina and Dominic explore the curious intersection of linguistics and AI—with special focus on how people talk to robots. They explore the history of chatbots from ELIZA to ChatGPT, and unveil findings from a new study on human-robot interaction using a robotic arm.

- How does generative AI like ChatGPT work?

- Why is a “Wizard of Oz” study possibly not what you think it is?

- What happens if humans and robots build IKEA shelves together?

- Do we use more commands with robots than with other humans?

Along the way, they reveal that people often say “thank you” to robots – almost like to humans.

This episode is packed with linguistic insights, surprising data, a dose of ethics, and more pop culture trivia than you might expect from a robotics paper.

Full episode transcript available here:

https://www.tu-chemnitz.de/phil/english/sections/edling/sciencecommunication/podcast-transcripts.php#Episode15

Full article available to read for free here:

"Another bit. Upwards. Okay, stop." Do we talk differently to humans and robots when assembling a shelf together? By Sasha Genevieve Coelho, Sascha Kaden, Marina Beccard, Florian Röhrbein and Christina Sanchez-Stockhammer. https://doi.org/10.1145/3743049.3748536

Films and series recommended in this episode:

- The Imitation Game. 2014. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2084970/

- My Fair Lady. 1964. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058385/

- The Theory of Everything. 2014. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2980516/

- The Wizard of Oz. 1939. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0032138/

- How It’s Made. www.youtube.com/@HowItsmade8

- Die Sendung mit der Maus. Lach- und Sachgeschichten. www.youtube.com/@diemaus

- I’m Your Man. (Ich bin dein Mensch.) 2021. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13087796/

Also mentioned in this episode:

- R.U.R. Science fiction play by Czech writer Karel Čapek. 1920.

- The Mechanical Turk. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanical_Turk.

- Somewhere Over the Rainbow. Techno song by DJ Marusha. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohfSJC44oe8

- John R. Searle. 1976. A Classification of Illocutionary Acts 1. Language in Society 5(1). 1-23.