Polite robot wows AI conference

Boffins in Pittsburgh have developed a polite robot that can register for a symposium, find a conference room and deliver a lecture.

The robot, called Grace (Graduate Robot Attending Conference), demonstrated her basic human social skills at the American Association of Artificial Intelligence's annual meeting in Edmonton, Alberta.

Built by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University, Grace completed her task in just over an hour.

But according to the Association's conference website, Grace's difficulty inunderstanding people was probably due to the noisy environment.

Apparently she had to ask several times for her badge and ask someone else to put it on for her because she had no hands.

But when getting in line to register, Grace queue-jumped and ran into a judge - which was probably not the politest of things to do.

Her designers plan to refine her and add schmoozing skills to her program for next year's conference.