In 2019, Dr. Ayanna Howard led a technical presentation regarding her journey from working with NASA on rovers for Mars, her experience with making rovers explore for scientists, to her current work in her technology startups. She emphasized the importance of making robotics accessible to all by connecting her experiences with developing advances in robotics and AI while also highlighting the importance of ensuring robots account for diversity and inclusion throughout the development of robotic and AI technologies.
Dr. Ayanna Howard began specializing in rovers when she worked for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), where she worked on developing the next generation of rovers for exploring Mars. Her relationship with NASA began with an internship, which progressed to her working as a research scientist for a special Rovers on Mars project. The project was successful and opened new doors as the exploration of Mars began. However, Howard decided to leave JPL after the space shuttle accident at NASA to join Georgia Tech.
The transition from her field of working with space rovers to focusing on how rovers can benefit exploration on Earth began with Howard meeting a climatologist who needed help collecting data in Antarctica. Their prototype of the rover, “Spider Motes,” was unsuccessful without snow boots as the rover sank into the snow. Howard realized from this event that throughout the design process, they did not account for asking detailed real required questions that the rover must have; after making snow boots for the rover, in the end, its speed was relatively slow. Howard pointed out that when individuals work on projects, it is easy to have our lens focused on a singular problem when answers could be found if our lens scoped away from the problem.
Shifting off from rover explorations as she found success in building rovers for different requirements, Howard began conducting workshops for students in camps. It was not until she had a visually impaired student that Howard started workshops on robot programming and camps to increase the accessibility of robotics for everyone. Driven to help people with disabilities, Howard was motivated to use robotics to improve accessibility and advance technologies.
She worked in clinics to monitor how technologies could be applied to help kids. From observing how humans interacted, her team noticed that humans are prone to engage more in activities with interactive responses, so they worked to develop assistive robots through engagement with recognizing and emoting accordingly based on the person’s emotions. Howard’s team did not make a real human-to-human interaction. Instead, it was all tied to the perception that robots can understand human emotions.
The central theme that resonated most strongly during Howard’s presentation was the concept of engineers and computer scientists striving to positively impact society while accounting for biases that come along from them throughout their process. Howard highlights the importance that designers of advanced technologies must ensure the process of making ethical robots for society. The message is significant as it correlates to the ethical dilemmas surrounding technology’s influence on society and how unconscious bias is difficult to identify. Nevertheless, it is essential to consider when trying to impact society. Biases are easy to formulate from our background and beliefs. However, we must recognize and work to avoid them when making judgments that can impact others.
Allen School Distinguished Lecture: Ayanna Howard (Georgia Institute of Technology) (2019). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpjncBrHzzA (Accessed: 08 October 2023).
