How understanding horses could inspire more trustworthy robots

In human-horse partnerships, horses primarily communicate nonvocally. For instance, their ears tend to point toward whatever they’re paying attention to. This behavior could inspire the creation of robots with electronic “ears” that can swivel in the direction of a ringing doorbell or people talking near an autonomous vehicle, thereby alerting humans to these sounds, Jain says. “Instead of the robot saying, ‘Knock on the door. Beep, beep,’ if its ears were to point toward the door, it’s a much less jarring, much more subtle way of informing” people that the robot hears something it’s paying attention to.