Human-Robot Dichotomy

This paper belongs to the area of roboethics and responsible robotics. It discusses the conceptual and practical separation of humans and robots in designing and implementing robots into real-world environments. We argue here that humans are often seen as a component that is only optional in design thinking, and in some cases even an obstacle to the successful robot performance. Such an approach may vary from viewing humans as a factor that does not belong to the robotics domain, through attempts to ‘adjust’ humans to robot requirements, to the overall replacement of humans with robots. Such separation or exclusion of humans poses serious ethical challenges, including the very exclusion of ethics from our thinking about robots

Towards a conceptualisation and critique of everyday life in HRI

This paper focuses on the topic of “everyday life” as it is addressed in Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) research. It starts from the argument that while human daily life with social robots has been increasingly discussed and studied in HRI, the concept of everyday life lacks clarity or systematic analysis, and it plays only a secondary role in supporting the study of the key HRI topics. In order to help conceptualise everyday life as a research theme in HRI in its own right, we provide an overview of the Social Science and Humanities (SSH) perspectives on everyday life and lived experiences, particularly in sociology, and identify the key elements that may serve to further develop and empirically study such a concept in HRI. We propose new angles of analysis that may help better explore unique aspects of human engagement with social robots. We look at the everyday not just as a reality as we know it (i.e., the realm of the “ordinary”) but also as the future that we need to envision and strive to materialise (i.e., the transformation that will take place through the “extraordinary” that comes with social robots). Finally, we argue that HRI research would benefit not only from engaging with a systematic conceptualisation but also critique of the contemporary everyday life with social robots. This is how HRI studies could play an important role in challenging the current ways of understanding of what makes different aspects of the human world “natural” and ultimately help bringing a social change towards what we consider a “good life.

Antropomorficzne roboty społeczne jako narzędzia tworzenia znaczeń a wzorce rówieśnicze

This paper discusses the use of anthropomorphic social robots in the area of safety education. The goal of the study was to investigate whether the use of anthropomorphic social robots increases learning efficiency, and if so, why. The underlying assumption was that anthropomorphic social robots may foster meaning-making due to their human-likeness, in particular a discrepancy between their human-like characteristics and the human frame of reference for such traits, and hence to improvelearning efficiency. In particular this paper discusses the results of a qualitative study conducted in four primary schools. Thestudy has shown that the key role of the robot in increasing learning efficiency is not so much to convey information and help carrying out specific tasks as to increase interest, and hence, motivation to learn. Also, the key factors that shape a successful use of such robots in safety education concern as much pupils as teachers and go far beyond the robot as such.Niniejsza praca omawia zastosowanie antropomorficznych robotów społecznych w edukacji w zakresie bezpiecznych zachowań. Celem było zbadanie, czy zastosowanie antropomorficznych robotów społecznych podnosi efektywność nauczania, i jeśli tak, to dlaczego. Podstawowym założeniem było twierdzenie, że antropomorficzne roboty społeczne mają potencjał wspierania procesu tworzenia znaczeń dzięki podobieństwu do człowieka, zwłaszcza poprzez rozbieżność pomiędzy cechami robotów naśladującymi cechy człowieka a ludzkim układem odniesienia dla takich cech. W szczególności niniejsza praca omawia wyniki badania jakościowego przeprowadzonego w czterech szkołach podstawowych. Badanie wykazało, że kluczową rolą robota w procesie podnoszenia efektywności nauczania jest nie tyle przekazywanie informacji i pomoc w wykonywaniu określonych zadań, ile podnoszenie zainteresowania, a przez to motywacji do nauki. Inne czynniki, które wpływają na skuteczne użycie antropomorficznych robotów społecznych do nauczania bezpiecznych zachowań, dotyczą tak samo uczniów, jak i nauczycieli oraz wykraczają daleko poza robota jako takiego

Roboethics as a Research Puzzle

This position paper discusses the question of incorporating roboethics into the roboticists' thinking about their research. On the one hand, there has been a growing recognition of the need to develop and advance the field of roboethics. On the other hand, for different reasons, a large part of the robotics community has still been reluctant to explicitly address ethical considerations in robotics research. We argue here that in order to facilitate and foster ethical reflection in roboticists' work, roboethics should be seen as a research puzzle. This implies studying rather than only applying specific ethical principles, as well as taking highly creative and pioneering approaches towards emerging ethical challenges

Comparing the similarity of responses received from studies in Amazon's Mechanical Turk to studies conducted online and with direct recruitment.

Computer and internet based questionnaires have become a standard tool in Human-Computer Interaction research and other related fields, such as psychology and sociology. Amazon's Mechanical Turk (AMT) service is a new method of recruiting participants and conducting certain types of experiments. This study compares whether participants recruited through AMT give different responses than participants recruited through an online forum or recruited directly on a university campus. Moreover, we compare whether a study conducted within AMT results in different responses compared to a study for which participants are recruited through AMT but which is conducted using an external online questionnaire service. The results of this study show that there is a statistical difference between results obtained from participants recruited through AMT compared to the results from the participant recruited on campus or through online forums. We do, however, argue that this difference is so small that it has no practical consequence. There was no significant difference between running the study within AMT compared to running it with an online questionnaire service. There was no significant difference between results obtained directly from within AMT compared to results obtained in the campus and online forum condition. This may suggest that AMT is a viable and economical option for recruiting participants and for conducting studies as setting up and running a study with AMT generally requires less effort and time compared to other frequently used methods. We discuss our findings as well as limitations of using AMT for empirical studies