Customer Responses to (Im)Moral Behavior of Service Robots - Online Experiments in a Retail Setting

Service robots play an increasingly important role in the service sector. Drawing on moral psychology research, moral foundations theory as well as the computers-as-social-actors (CASA) paradigm, this experimental study containing of four online experiments examines the extent to which the moral or immoral behavior of a service robot affects customer responses during a service interaction. This study contributes to design science by defining, conceptualizing and operationalizing morality of service robots and developing a corresponding vignette as basis to manipulate (im)moral robotic behavior in a retail setting. To investigate possible effects of the robot’s appearance, we tested our hypotheses with two different robots, i.e., a humanoid robot and an android robot. Results from the online experiment indicate that the (im)moral behavior of service robots at the customer interface has a significant effect on customers’ trust and customers’ ethical concerns towards the robot

A theoretical and practical approach to a persuasive agent model for change behaviour in oral care and hygiene

There is an increased use of the persuasive agent in behaviour change interventions due to the agent‘s features of sociable, reactive, autonomy, and proactive. However, many interventions have been unsuccessful, particularly in the domain of oral care. The psychological reactance has been identified as one of the major reasons for these unsuccessful behaviour change interventions. This study proposes a formal persuasive agent model that leads to psychological reactance reduction in order to achieve an improved behaviour change intervention in oral care and hygiene. Agent-based simulation methodology is adopted for the development of the proposed model. Evaluation of the model was conducted in two phases that include verification and validation. The verification process involves simulation trace and stability analysis. On the other hand, the validation was carried out using user-centred approach by developing an agent-based application based on belief-desire-intention architecture. This study contributes an agent model which is made up of interrelated cognitive and behavioural factors. Furthermore, the simulation traces provide some insights on the interactions among the identified factors in order to comprehend their roles in behaviour change intervention. The simulation result showed that as time increases, the psychological reactance decreases towards zero. Similarly, the model validation result showed that the percentage of respondents‘ who experienced psychological reactance towards behaviour change in oral care and hygiene was reduced from 100 percent to 3 percent. The contribution made in this thesis would enable agent application and behaviour change intervention designers to make scientific reasoning and predictions. Likewise, it provides a guideline for software designers on the development of agent-based applications that may not have psychological reactance

Aging between Participation and Simulation

This publication aims to initiate an interdisciplinary discourse on the ethical, legal, and social implications of socially assistive technologies in healthcare. It combines practically relevant insights and examples from current research and development with ethical analysis to uncover moral pitfalls at the intersection between the promotion of social participation and well-being, and risks that may diminish the achievement of these ends

Aging between Participation and Simulation

This publication aims to initiate an interdisciplinary discourse on the ethical, legal, and social implications of socially assistive technologies in healthcare. It combines practically relevant insights and examples from current research and development with ethical analysis to uncover moral pitfalls at the intersection between the promotion of social participation and well-being, and risks that may diminish the achievement of these ends

The Machine Gun Hand: Robots, Performance, and American Ideology in the Twentieth Century

Twentieth-century Marxist philosopher Louis Althusser argued in his famous essay “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses” that capitalism reproduces itself by interpellating individuals as subjects. For Althusser, the subject has a dual definition: a person who imagines him or herself to be a free subject who then “chooses” capitalism, and a person who, once they have “chosen” capitalism, gives up their free will to the Subject (Law, God, Authority, the State). This dual definition of the subject mirrors the dual definition of “robot.” A robot is both a mechanical being that moves on its own and a person who acts in a mechanical way. By situating humans as “not robots,” I argue that narratives and performances of robots function as tools for the reproduction of capital. This dissertation examines four historical moments in the United States—the 1939 New York World\u27s Fair, the 1960s automation debates, the end of the Cold War, and the turn of the millennium—to argue that robots in performance serve an important ideological function: to convince us that we, unlike robots, are free subjects

How robots change our minds

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, School of Architecture and Planning, Program in Media Arts and Sciences, 2009.Includes bibliographical references (p. 169-174).This thesis explores the extent to which socially capable humanoid robots have the potential to influence human belief, perception and behavior. Sophisticated computational systems coupled with human-like form and function render such robots as potentially powerful forms of persuasive technology. Currently, there is very little understanding of the persuasive potential of such machines. As personal robots become a reality in our immediate environment, a better understanding of the mechanisms behind, and the capabilities of, their ability to influence, is becoming increasingly important. This thesis proposes some guiding principles by which to qualify persuasion. A study was designed in which the MDS (Mobile Dexterous Social) robotic platform was used to solicit visitors for donations at the Museum of Science in Boston. The study tests some nonverbal behavioral variables known to change persuasiveness in humans, and measures their effect in human-robot interaction. The results of this study indicate that factors such as robot-gender, subject-gender, touch, interpersonal distance, and the perceived autonomy of the robot, have a huge impact on the interaction between human and robot, and must be taken into consideration when designing sociable robots. This thesis applies the term persuasive robotics to define and test the theoretical and practical implications for robot-triggered changes in human attitude and behavior. Its results provide for a vast array of speculations with regard to what practical applications may become available using this framework.by Michael Steven Siegel.S.M