Introduction: What is “Transposing”?
In this research, to “transpose” means to take a strategy or a piece of technology that was originally built for a robot and apply it to a high-stakes human situation.
Think of it like taking a safety feature from a race car and putting it into a family minivan. We are taking the objective, mathematical insights we’ve learned from social robotics and using them to re-engineer human systems—like schools and police-citizen encounters—to make them safer and more respectful.
Lowering the “Threat Temperature”
One of the most important things we’ve learned from robots is how to signal that they are not a threat. This is called Tactical Submissiveness. We can “transpose” these robotic signals to help humans in authority roles (like teachers or police officers) de-escalate a crisis.
- Acoustic Signaling: Robots are programmed with specific vocal frequencies and “soft” speech patterns to sound non-aggressive. Human actors can learn these same patterns to lower the “threat temperature” in a tense situation.
- Behavioral Modeling: Just as robots use certain facial expressions to appear non-threatening, humans can use these same “submissive” signals to prevent violence.
- Reducing Stress: These techniques help mitigate Male Discrepancy Stress (MDS), which is the biological stress some people feel when they think they are being challenged or disrespected.
From Robot Metrics to Social Justice
The Neurodivergent Scale for Interacting with Robots (NSIR) started as a way to see if a robot was easy for a neurodivergent person to use. We are now transposing this scale into a diagnostic tool for human safety and sovereignty.
- Quantifying “Safe Surrender”: By using the NSIR, we can actually measure the exact biological moment when a person feels safe enough to stop resisting an authority figure.
- Fighting Empathy Erosion: Often in high-pressure jobs, authority figures stop seeing the person in front of them as a human being—this is called “empathy erosion”. These tools help identify and stop this erosion, ensuring that dignity and life are prioritized over dominance.
Real-World Applications
This isn’t just theory; these “transpositions” are being applied to solve real problems:
- Police-Citizen Encounters: Using robotic vocal and facial signals to de-escalate situations without the bias often found in human interaction.
- Ontario Public Schools: Using the architecture of the Sovereign Dyad to protect students from the exhaustion of “masking” and the stress of constant surveillance.
- Measuring Success: Moving the goal from “making people comply” to “making people safe”.
Conclusion: Bionic Agency and Somatic Sovereignty
The ultimate goal of transposing robotics to the human world is to create Bionic Agency and Somatic Sovereignty.
- Bionic Agency: Giving people the digital and social tools they need to act effectively in a world that wasn’t built for them.
- Somatic Sovereignty: Protecting the right of every individual to feel safe and in control of their own body and mind.
By using the “objective” science of robotics, we can build a world where human systems are designed to protect and support us, rather than control us.