Social Robotics

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Human Approved — by Ursula Addison on 2026-05-21

Responsible: Ben Goertzel (architecture)

Partners: Mind Children (education robot); Hanson Robotics (expressive humanoids — Sophia, Desdemona)

Papers: Hyperon for AGI⇒ASI Whitepaper (2025), §9.2

GitHub (legacy OpenCog): ghost_bridge (ROS-GHOST bridge), ros-behavior-scripting (Eva robot control, production 2015–2017), loving-ai (Loving AI dialogue/meditation), loving-ai-ghost (GHOST chatbot scripts for Loving AI)

Status: Partnerships established with Mind Children and Hanson Robotics. Legacy OpenCog ROS integration exists (ghost_bridge, ros-behavior-scripting, loving-ai). Hyperon-native robotics integration is under development; the whitepaper (§9.2) describes the target architecture.

Humanoid social robotics provides a stress-test for PRIMUS: robots must combine perception, dialogue, motor control, and social norms seamlessly — from classroom tutoring to stage performance — without requiring a complete rewrite for each scenario.

Target Architecture (from Whitepaper)

The whitepaper describes a layered architecture: external audio/vision neural networks for initial perception, with progressive embedding of predictive coding layers for latency-critical paths (gaze estimation, lip-sync, gesture segmentation). Pattern Miner would discover conversational templates (adjacency pairs, tutoring frames) for Symbolic Heads to retrieve during speech decoding, while PLN enforces persona and safety constraints. MetaMo would budget the balance between exploration and de-escalation behaviors.

Motor control keeps low-level servo loops on the robot while SubRep options cover higher-level skills ("look at face", "nod", "hand-wave") with formal admission certificates. Geodesic control aligns dialogue steps with motion options so physical gestures support conversational goals. The whitepaper describes capability-gated on-device modification and safety dashboards tracking invariant bands for persona and etiquette.

Current Implementation

The existing repo surface is legacy OpenCog infrastructure:

  • ghost_bridge — ROS package connecting Hanson Robotics hardware to the GHOST chatbot system via AtomSpace. Bridges speech, gaze, gestures, emotion recognition.
  • ros-behavior-scripting — ROS nodes for Eva robot sensory input (vision, audio) and motor control. Production use with Hanson Robotics 2015–2017.
  • loving-ai — Loving AI project for social interaction and guided meditation with the Sophia robot. Demonstrates empathetic dialogue, emotional responsiveness, and therapeutic conversation. Uses OpenCog AtomSpace for dialogue management.
  • loving-ai-ghost — GHOST chatbot dialogue scripts for the Loving AI project. Rule-based dialogue trees with emotion-aware branching for meditation guidance and empathetic conversation.

Hyperon-native equivalents of these components are part of the development roadmap.

Key References

  • Goertzel, B. (2025). Hyperon for AGI⇒ASI Whitepaper, §9.2: Humanoid Social Robotics



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