Teaching robots to punch and understand what pain is

These are all valid questions. We humans come in all shapes, sizes and limits. All these kinds of variables are currently hard for computers/robots to adapt to. There are still many things we take for granted when we interact with other people that are still beyond the capabilities of computers to process. For instance we tend to know that a "5 year old child" shaped human usually reacts to pain in different ways than a "professional football player" shaped human does. A computer doesn't necessarily KNOW that difference or could even TELL that difference yet.

So while this experiment (in and of itself) might not be that practical it will likely help continue the basic research towards allowing computers/robots to better adapt to interacting physically with humans. Robots "understanding" pain is not really just about letting them know how to inflict pain - it'll lead to much more than that. For instance there will eventually be robots that will be able to pick up wounded soldiers off a battlefield and take them to safety. Don't you think it would be nice for them to know that if a solider has a huge wound or a broken bone that it would be better not to grab them there? A robot that "understands" pain would know how to properly adapt to that situation.