Prof. Dr. Verena V Hafner

The EU project METATOOL aims to provide a computational model of synthetic awareness to enhance adaptation and achieve tool invention. This will enable a robot to monitor and self-evaluate its performance, ground and reuse this information for adapting to new circumstances, and finally unlock the possibility of creating new tools. Under the predictive account of awareness, and based on both neuroscientific and archeological evidence, we will develop a novel computational model of metacognition based on predictive processing (metaprediction) and validate its utility in real robots in two use case scenarios: conditional sequential tasks and tool creation. At Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, we will develop and investigate computational models for tool-use and tool invention based on predictive processing paradigms. The models will be evaluated and implemented in robots interacting with tools in a real physical environment.