IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - December 2019 - 4

FROM THE EDITOR'S DESK

The Right to Fail
By Bram Vanderborght

s Winston Churchill stated,
"Success consists of going from
failure to failure without loss
of enthusiasm." On his side
are the Silicon Valley entrepreneurs
who wear their failed start-ups as
badges of honor. Failure is something
that all scientists experience-but it's
hard to tell, looking at our spectacular
conferences, polished presentations,
and glossy journals.
Research projects inherently have
some level of risk, which often decreases as their
technological
maturity inOfficers can
creases. This is
encourage
why risk management and
developers to adopt
mitigation
a more positive
plans are often
provided in reposition on learning
search proposals
from failures and
and monitored
during project
disseminate that on
execution. Ways
the project websites
to minimize
risks are, for
and other channels.
example, an iterative development process, investigating parallel
possibilities, and including the end
user in the process from the very start.
But, as Prof. Mariana Mazzucato [1]
stated, "If failure is an unavoidable part
of the innovation game, and if government is crucial for innovation, society
must be more tolerant of 'government
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MRA.2019.2941332
Date of current version: 11 December 2019

IEEE ROBOTICS & AUTOMATION MAGAZINE

failure.' But the reality is that
when government fails,
there is public outcry-and
silence when it succeeds."
Therefore, we need to
investigate how we can promote a culture where negative
results don't lead to ridicule and punishment but are instead seen as a learning opportunity. For example, in scientific papers, it is common to describe
the limitations of the research. It is also
a way to avoid over-expectation. However, research from Fanelli [2] found
that papers "are less likely to be published and cited if they report negative
results." And as has been noted in
Nature, "Negative findings are still a low
priority for publication, so we need to
find ways to make publishing them
more attractive" [3].
Journals launched with the specific
scope of publishing negative findings
often do not attract as many papers,
demonstrating that it is the underlying
scientific culture that requires change
and not just the journals' policies [4].
When reviewing projects, officers can
encourage developers to adopt a more
positive position on learning from failures and disseminate that on the project
websites and other channels.
During the IEEE International
Conference on Robotics and Automation 2019, there were two "Notable
Failures" keynote talks that provided
perspectives from both industry and
academics: one by Ryan Gariepy,
chief technical officer and cofounder
of Clearpath Robotics and OTTO
Motors, and the other by Matthew

DECEMBER 2019

Mason from Carnegie Mellon University. There are
also so-called "F**kup
Nights," a global movement
and event series that shares
stories of professional failure.
In this discussion, it is also
relevant to mention Gartners' Hype
Cycle [5]. Gartner uses this concept
to plot how "hyped" certain technologies are. The cycle plots Amara's
law: "We tend to overestimate the
effect of a technology in the short
run and underestimate the effect in
the long run." Novel technologies
start with big promises. These promises don't get delivered, leading
t o disappointment, but then the
technology matures and confidence
slowly grows again, even beyond the
original expectations.
Several technologies our Society
develops, like smart robots, exoskeletons, autonomous mobile robots, and
smart workspaces, are moving rapidly
through the Hype Cycle. They are
approaching and will soon reach their
peak and enter the "trough of disillusionment" in which people become
disappointed that the hype does not
live up to the high expectations. The
Hype Cycle teaches us that ambition
should be big but also realistic. We cannot deliver any results upon request.
Moreover, we need to be aware that the
impact of a project is very likely to be
visible only a few years later.
This special issue focuses on the
theme "Developing Humanoid Robots
(continued on page 19)

IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - December 2019

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