Status Signals Are for Everyone Nearby
■ A body that should have been idle was walking
Late at night, when the Robo Avatar steps away, Pikarikun's eyes change to two flat lines: a sign that no one is operating it. But when Oshiro looked up from her charting, Pikarikun was walking toward the drug storage room, its eyes still flat lines. The eyes said “nobody's here,” yet the body was moving. Oshiro caught the mismatch and murmured, “…Its eyes are lines, but it's moving?”
■ A hijacking is hard to see from the operator's seat
A remotely operated robot is controlled from outside over a network. That means someone other than the operator could connect and move it—a hijacking. An operator who has stepped away can't see what happens in the meantime. The people best placed to notice something wrong are the ones standing next to the robot—but only if they can tell who is controlling it right now.
■ Conclusion: Display status for the people around the robot, too
Oshiro's call on the extension got the connection cut, and Pikarikun sat down where it was. Shiraishi confirmed, “While you were away, someone connected from outside.” The giveaway was that it had been walking with flat-line eyes. A status display like the shape of the eyes isn't just for the operator. If it is visible to everyone nearby, people can spot trouble from a mismatch between what the display says and what the robot does.
A visible signal turns everyone on the ward into a lookout.
