Related papers: Into the Wild: When Robots Are Not Welcome
In planning for future human space exploration, it is important to consider how to design for uplifting interpersonal communications and social dynamics among crew members. What if embodied social robots could help to improve the overall…
In 2018 the European Commission highlighted the demand of a human-centered approach to AI. Such a claim is gaining even more relevance considering technologies specifically designed to directly interact and physically collaborate with human…
Robots in urban environments will inevitably encounter situations beyond their capabilities (e.g., delivery robots unable to press traffic light buttons), necessitating bystander assistance. These spontaneous collaborations possess…
Robot avatars for customer service are gaining traction in Japan. However, their acceptance in other societal contexts remains underexplored, complicating efforts to design robot avatars suitable for diverse cultural environments. To…
The role of robots is expanding from tool to collaborator. Socially assistive robots (SARs) are an example of collaborative robots that assist humans in the real world. As robots enter our social sphere, unforeseen risks occur during…
Deploying interactive systems in-the-wild requires adaptability to situations not encountered in lab environments. Our work details our experience about the impact of architecture choice on behavior reusability and reactivity while…
The use of social robots as instruments for social mediation has been gaining traction in the field of Human-Robot Interaction (HRI). So far, the design of such robots and their behaviors is often driven by technological platforms and…
AI researchers have been advancing socially intelligent AI agents (Social-AI) across embodiments, from chatbots to physical robots. As Social-AI is increasingly deployed in everyday settings, decisions about the roles these agents should…
Robots are increasingly entering the daily lives of families, yet their successful integration into domestic life remains a challenge. We explore family routines as a critical entry point for understanding how robots might find a…
One of the major areas where social robots are finding their place in society is for healthcare-related applications. Yet, very little research has mapped the deployment of socially assistive robots (SARs) in real settings. Using a…
The rapid progress in AI and Robotics may lead to a profound societal transformation, as humans and robots begin to coexist within shared communities, introducing both opportunities and challenges. To explore this future, we present Virtual…
A social robot acting as a 'mediator' can enhance interactions between humans, for example, in fields such as education and healthcare. A particularly promising area of research is the use of a social robot mediator in a multiparty setting,…
Human-Robot-Interaction (HRI) research is typically built around the premise that the robot serves to assist a human in achieving a human-led goal or shared task. However, there are many circumstances during HRI in which a robot may need…
With the increasing deployment of robots in public spaces, encounters between robots and incidentally copresent persons (InCoPs) are becoming more frequent. However, InCoPs remain largely underexplored in the literature, particularly from a…
There has been a surge in the number and type of AI tools being tested and deployed within both national and local government in the UK, including within the social care sector. Given the many ongoing and planned future developments, the…
Mobile service robots are increasingly prevalent in human-centric, real-world domains, operating autonomously in unconstrained indoor environments. In such a context, robotic vision plays a central role in enabling service robots to…
The exponentially increasing advances in robotics and machine learning are facilitating the transition of robots from being confined to controlled industrial spaces to performing novel everyday tasks in domestic and urban environments. In…
Public perceptions of Robotics and Artificial Intelligence (RAI) are important in the acceptance, uptake, government regulation and research funding of this technology. Recent research has shown that the public's understanding of RAI can be…
Profanity is nearly as old as language itself, and cursing has become particularly ubiquitous within the last century. At the same time, robots in personal and service applications are often overly polite, even though past work demonstrates…
Notwithstanding the tremendous progress that is taking place in spoken language technology, effective speech-based human-robot interaction still raises a number of important challenges. Not only do the fields of robotics and spoken language…