Social Robotics

Over the last two decades, several deployments of robots for in-house assistance of older adults have been trialled. However, these solutions are mostly prototypes and remain unused in real-life scenarios. In this work, we review the historical and current landscape of the field, to try and understand why robots have yet to succeed as personal assistants in daily life. Our analysis focuses on two complementary aspects: the capabilities of the physical platform and the logic of the deployment. The former analysis shows regularities in hardware configurations and functionalities, leading to the definition of a set of six application-level capabilities (exploration, identification, remote control, communication, manipulation, and digital situatedness). The latter focuses on the impact of robots on the daily life of users and categorises the deployment of robots for healthcare interventions using three types of services: support, mitigation, and response. Our investigation reveals that ...

This paper aims to show the possible and actual synergies between social robotics and sociology. The author argues that social robots are one of the best fields of inquiry to provide a bridge between the two cultures – the one represented by the social sciences and the humanities on the one hand, and the one represented by the natural sciences and engineering on the other. To achieve this result, quantitative and qualitative analyses are implemented. By using scientometric tools like Ngram Viewer, search engines such as Google Scholar, and hand calculations, the author detects the emergence of the term-and-concept ‘social robots’ in its current use, the absolute and relative frequencies of this term in the scientific literature in the period 1800-2008, the frequency distribution of publications including this term in the period 2000-2019, and the magnitude of publications in which the term ‘social robots’ is associated to the term ‘sociology’ or 'social work'. Finally, employing qualitative analysis and focusing on exemplary cases, this paper shows different ways of implementing researches that relate sociology to robotics, from a theoretical or instrumental point of view. It is argued that sociologists and engineers could work in a team to observe, analyze, and describe the interaction between humans and social robots, by using research techniques and theoretical frames provided by sociology. In turn, this knowledge can be used to build more effective and humanlike social robots.

This paper interrogates online representations of robot companions for children, including promotional material by manufacturers, media articles and technology blogs. The significance of the study lies in its contribution to understanding attitudes to robots. The prospect of childcare robots is particularly controversial ethically, and is associated with emotive arguments. The sampled material is restricted to relatively recent posts (the past three years) though the analysis identifies both continuous and changing themes across the past decade. The method extrapolates social representations theory towards examining the ways in which information about robotic products is provided for the general public. Implications for social acceptance of robot companions for the home and robot ethics are considered.

This Foreword, about robots, written in both poetry as well as prose, introduces the edited collection _Androids, Cyborgs, and Robots in Contemporary Culture and Society_, edited by Steven J. Thompson (IGI Global, 2018). The link on the thumbnail cover at
https://www.igi-global.com/book/_/179222 will take you directly to the published Foreword, which is open access. The attached PDF, sent directly to me from IGI-Global to use here, is presented with written permission of the publisher.

Given that empathy allows people to form and maintain satisfying social relationships with other subjects, it is no surprise that this is one of the most studied phenomena in the area of human-robot interaction (HRI). But the fact that the term 'empathy' has strong social connotations raises a question: can it be applied to robots? Can we actually use social terms and explanations in relation to these inanimate machines? In this article, I analyse the range of uses of the term empathy in the field of HRI studies and social robotics, and consider the substantial, functional and relational positions on this issue. I focus on the relational (cooperational) perspective presented by Luisa Damiano and Paul Dumouchel, who interpret emotions (together with empathy) as being the result of affective coordination. I also reflect on the criteria that should be used to determine when, in such relations, we are dealing with actual empathy. Keywords Empathy · Social robots · Human-robot interactions · Neuroscience In the interdisciplinary research field of human-robot interaction (HRI), not only do the empirical sciences, the social sciences and the humanities come together, but so do their methodological perspectives, theoretical assumptions and the terms they use. The intersection of these points of view, although very constructive, requires consistent and meticulous terminological and conceptual verification. In this article,

Soziale Roboter unterscheiden sich von Servicerobotern, da sie auch komplexere Interaktionen und Kommunikation beherrschen. Einige können Emotionen simulieren oder sogar erkennen. Einsatzbereiche gibt es viele: vom Haushalt über die Pflege bis in den medizinischen Bereich. Wo liegen die Grenzen der aktuellen Systeme? Wie müssen soziale Roboter aussehen und interagieren, um als nützliche Helfer statt als Konkurrenten wahrgenommen zu werden? Dieser Artikel gibt einen kurzen Überblick bestehender sozialer Roboter. Er beleuchtet deren Akzeptanz im wichtigen Bereich Gesundheit und Pflege anhand der Ergebnisse einer Expertenstudie und gibt eine zeitliche Perspektive zur weiteren Entwicklung.

Social robots are those endowed with communication channels and abilities that take inspiration from human beings. The scope of such abilities should include those allowing a robot to understand people’s affective states and expressions, intentions, actions, and to interpret them based on contextual information. Childcare robots are an example of robots that could take advantage of the integration of these capabilities. This commentary conducts a technical appraisal of the notion of autonomous childcare robots, focusing on these social perceptive capabilities, reviewing some of the key challenges remaining to be investigated by the research community in this respect.

The present case study investigated the effect of applying a humanoid robot as a teacher assistant to teach a foreign language (English in this case) to Iranian children with autism. To do this, there were 4 male autistic children, 7–9 years old, 3 with high-functioning autism and one with low-functioning autism. The humanoid robot NAO was used as the main instrument of this study. There were 12 sessions including 10 teaching sessions. This study used a pre-test, mid-test, immediate post-test, and delayed post-test design to measure the learning gains of the autistic children participating in the robot-assisted language learning (RALL) program. The results showed the subjects’ large learning gains which were fairly persistent according to their performances on the delayed post-test. The difference observed between the learning gains of the high-functioning and low-functioning participants is also discussed.

Automated, intelligent, persuasive technologies are permeating daily life and making their appearance felt in homes, cars and workspaces. These forms of social robotics are designed to ensure that certain actions take place and that sought-after effects are attained; to do so they direct users towards making ‘correct’ decisions or by performing the ‘right’ actions themselves according to pre-programmed protocols. Engaging in habitual tasks, seemingly the operation of these devices is of little ethical concern; and yet, offering familiar albeit perhaps more efficient mechanisms of self-regulation and normalization, the deployment of these devices both challenges and reshapes users’ abilities to choose and to act freely.  Consequently, not only does personal freedom in using these devices need to be reassessed, but as these devices ascertain that ‘the right thing gets done’ they infringe upon personal autonomy and the constitution of subjectivity. Through their recontextualization of freedom and their impact on users as moral agents, these intelligent, persuasive technologies shape a new ethical landscape bound to action, habit and device.

The capability of collaboration is critical in the design of symbiotic cognitive systems. To obtain this functional capability, a cognitive system should possess evaluative and communicative processes. Emotions and their underlying processes provide such functions in social and collaborative environments.We investigate the mutual influence of affective and collaboration processes in a cognitive theory to support the interaction between humans and robots or virtual agents. We have developed new algorithms for these processes, as well as a new overall computational model for implementing collaborative robots and agents. We build primarily on the cognitive appraisal theory of emotions and the SharedPlans theory of collaboration to investigate the structure, fundamental processes and functions of emotions in a collaboration context.

Stephen Hawking recently told the BBC that "the development of full artificial intelligence (AI) could spell the end of the human race." The real problem here is not with the rather disturbing predictions of Hawking, but with the apocalyptic tone and mode of thinking that he employs and utilizes.

What form should happiness take? And how do we shape Disgust? This research
investigates a fundamentally novel design approach to affective robotics design in which abstraction
and the minimal requirements to perceive emotion expressions play a fundamental role. The core
idea is that if we abstract away from the human body, and leave only the essential components
relevant to convey emotions, this is sufficient to meet the cognitive requirements of human beings for
affective interaction. As such, the novelty of our approach lies in the fact that it does not revolve
around designing the anatomical body features used in emotion expression, e.g. facial expressions,
body postures and arm gestures, but instead focuses on designing expressions based on the essential
components of visual emotion recognition. Such a turnaround in design strategies requires a new
design theoretical framework. To facilitate further exploration, this research unifies affective robotics,
affective science and abstract art from a psychological perspective to develop design guidelines for
what we call: abstract affective robotics.

Social robots not only work with humans in collaborative workspaces – we meet them in shopping malls and even more personal settings like health and care. Does this imply they should become more human, able to interpret and adequately respond to human emotions? Do we want them to help elderly persons? Do we want them to support us when we are old ourselves? Do we want them to just clean and keep things orderly – or would we accept them helping us to go to the toilet, or even feed us if we suffer from Parkinson’s disease?

The answers to these questions differ from person to person. They depend on cultural background, personal experiences – but probably most of all on the robot in question. This book covers the phenomenon of social robots from the historic roots to today’s best practices and future perspectives. To achieve this, we used a hands-on, interdisciplinary approach, incorporating findings from computer scientists, engineers, designers, psychologists, doctors, nurses, historians and many more. The book also covers a vast spectrum of applications, from collaborative industrial work over education to sales. Especially for developments with a high societal impact like robots in health and care settings, the authors discuss not only technology, design and usage but also ethical aspects.

Thus this book creates both a compendium and a guideline, helping to navigate the design space for future developments in social robotics.

Companies from the travel, tourism and hospitality industry have started adopting robots, artificial intelligence and service automation technologies (RAISA) in their operations. Self-check-in kiosks, robotic pool cleaners, delivery robots, robot concierges, chatbots, etc., are used increasingly by tourism companies and transform the ways they create and deliver services. This paper investigates the impact of RAISA technologies on travel, tourism and hospitality companies – their operations, facilities design, marketing, supply chain management, human resource management, and financial management. The paper emphasises that in the future companies will divide into two large segments – high-tech tourism companies offering standardized cheap robot-delivered services, and high-touch companies, which rely on human employees.

We kindly ask you to participate in this research devoted to the adoption of service robots by travel, tourism and hospitality companies. By completing the questionnaire, you will be eligible to participate in an opportunity for one of five electronic 100-dollar gift cards, redeemable as Amazon gift vouchers, among other options. Once you have completed the survey, a separate link will be sent to you allowing you to register for the opportunity. The researchers will not be able to identify your responses to the survey questions and the identifying information you will leave for the purposes of the opportunity for the gift vouchers.

For questions about your rights as a research subject, please contact the Director, Office of Research Integrity, Ball State University, Muncie, IN 47306, (765) 285-5070 or at [email protected]. IRB Protocol Number: 1194315-1

Please complete the questionnaire if only you are at least 18 years of age.
Thank you in advance for your participation!

Here is the link to the survey:

https://bsu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_4PdOOi6ERWHw97v

Sincerely,

Dr. Craig Webster, Ball State University, USA, email: [email protected]
Prof. Stanislav Ivanov, Varna University Management, Bulgaria, email: [email protected]

The study of structure and form (morphology), classification according to measurable empirical characteristics (taxonomy) and classification of abstract concepts (typology) serve as scrucial foundational methods for research and speculative design explorations. Classifications provide the metanarratives of our information age, and through their dissection we can critically explore and challenge meaning, perception and conventions. As designers, by naming, ordering and clustering the physical world around us and the concepts that shape our beliefs and behaviors, we can initiate a series of epistemological inquiries, focus our critical thinking, and remake arrangements for new and provocative messages, representations, user interactions, visualizations and commentaries. Morphology — Study of Structure and Form Morphology is commonly associated with linguistics, where a morpheme (Greek " form ") is described as the smallest grammatical unit of speech, i.e. the most essential, irreduc-ible component of language. It is also widely used as a descriptive device in physical sciences such as geology (rock and sedimentary formations), biology (cell structure) and chemistry (crystallography). It is now also pervasive in mathematics and computer science, where equations and programming languages are expressed in terms of mnemonics, logic and syntax. An early modern proponent of morphology in the sciences was the German poet and statesman Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832), who in addition to his literary and legal career, wrote extensively on morphology , maintained what was then the largest rock and mineral collection in Europe, and was the first to investigate and list in detail the psychological effects of color. Morphology is also a prominent aspect of architecture and urban studies, where it serves as an essential tool for critical analysis and planning. In practice the concept is often manifest through engagement with natural forms and materials, and through comparisons to tissues, material flow, reproductive and metabolic functions.

As the field of Compassionate Artificial Intelligence (AI) is maturing first, emotion recognition and cognitive robotics are becoming the core components of modern Artificial intelligence (AI). In his pioneering work, Sri Amit Ray developed deep compassion algorithms for generating awareness and deep feelings in robots. Here, we analyze frameworks of embedding deeper levels of artificial psychology in robots.

Purpose
Provides a comprehensive review of research on robotics in travel, tourism and hospitality. Identifies research gaps and directions for future research.

Design/methodology/approach
Analyzes 131 publications published during 1993-2019 identified via Scopus, Web of Science, ResearchGate, Academia.edu and Google Scholar. This includes quantitative analysis of frequencies and cross-tables, and qualitative thematic analysis of the publications within each of seven identified domains.

Findings
Identifies ‘Robot’, ‘Human’, ‘Robot manufacturer’, ‘Travel / tourism / hospitality company’, ‘Servicescape’, ‘External environment’, and ‘Education, training and research’ as research domains. Most research is dedicated to robots in restaurants, airports, hotels and bars. Papers tend to apply engineering methods, but experiments and surveys grow in popularity. Asia-Pacific countries account for much of the empirical research.

Research limitations/implications
The analysis was limited to publications indexed in 4 databases and 1 search engine. Only publications in English were considered. Growing opportunities for those who are anxious to publish in the field are identified. Importantly, emerging research is branching out from the engineering of robots to the possibilities for human/robot interactions and their use for service providers, opening up new avenues of research for tourism and hospitality scholars.

Practical implications
The paper identified a myriad of application areas for robots across various tourism and hospitality sectors. Service providers must critically think about how robots affect the servicescape and how it needs to be adjusted or re-imagined to ensure that robots and employees can augment the service experiences (co-)created within it.

Originality/value
First study to systematically analyze research publications on robotics in travel, tourism and hospitality.

In recent years the world has witnessed significant progress in robotics, artificial intelligence, and service automation (RAISA). Such technologies are used in the manufacturing as industrial robots, in transportation as autonomous vehicles, in medicine for diagnoses and surgery, in education, in marketing, social media, search engines, in warehouses and supply chain management, in agriculture, entertainment, in military and surveillance operations etc. Social robots even enter our lives as companions and assistants for the elderly and for children with special needs. RAISA are entering into all parts of the travel, tourism and hospitality industries. They come in the form of automated restaurants and hotels, in-room digital assistants, robot concierges, robots guides, delivery drones, chatbots, etc. RAISA provide vast opportunities to travel, tourism and hospitality companies to improve their operations and productivity, deliver consistent product quality and transfer some of the service delivery process to the customers. At the same time, they raise various questions like the dehumanisation, standardisation and commodification of hospitality services, substitution of employees by robots and artificial intelligence, overdependence on computers. While the application of artificial intelligence and service automation (e.g. self-service technologies) in travel, tourism and hospitality companies have received some attention by scholars, research on the adoption of robots by them is extremely scarce. This book aims to partially fill in this gap by elaborating on the theoretical and practical aspects of robots, artificial intelligence and service automation on both strategic and operational level. If you are interested in contributing to this exciting project, please submit a 300-500 word abstract by the 31 st of March, 2017 with 10-15 key references to the emails of both editors:

The discussion about robots in elderly care is populated by doom scenarios about a totally dehumanized care system in which elderly people are taken care of by machines. Such scenarios are helpful as they attend us to what we think is important with regard to the quality elderly care. However, this article argues that they are misleading in so far as they (1) assume that deception in care is always morally unacceptable, (2) suggest that robots and other information technologies necessarily deceive elderly people by creating a “virtual” world as opposed to a “real” world, (3) assume that elderly people of the future have similar ICT skills and interests as the elderly people of today, and (4) assume a simplistic view of technologies. The article suggests an approach to evaluating care robots and ICT in health care which acknowledges and addresses a number of ethical problems raised by robotic care—for instance disengagement problems—while taking into account that some elderly people may need care that does not treat them as (empirically) autonomous, that many the elderly of the future are likely to be digital natives, and that the task of evaluating technologies in care is more complicated than the discussion of deception suggests.

Perché parliamo di robotica sociale? Perché l’immagine del robot come dispositivo essenzialmente meccanico e ripetitivo ha lasciato ormai il posto ad un’immagine molto più articolata, dovuta all’ingresso sempre più massiccio dell’Intelligenza Artificiale nella progettazione e gestione di questi artefatti. I robot entrano infatti sempre più nella vita quotidiana e sociale, proprio grazie alle loro capacità “intelligenti” di apprendimento e di decisione: di conseguenza si trovano ad interagire con gli umani in modalità nuove e a volte imprevedibili, aprendo un territorio di studio e sperimentazione che estende il campo relazionale al di là del tradizionale ambito dell’interazione “uomo-macchina”, sviluppando nuovi e fecondi rapporti fra discipline tecnologiche e scienze sociali.

Socially aware robots have to coordinate their actions considering the spatial requirements of the humans with whom they interact. We propose a general framework based on the notion of affordances that generalizes geometrical accounts to the problem of human-aware placement of robot activities. The framework provides a conceptual instrument to take into account the heterogeneous abilities and affordances of humans, robots, and environmental entities. We discuss how affordance knowledge can be used in various reasoning tasks relevant to human-robot interaction

[this is the developed version of conference speech "Cain inanimate objects be more sexually attractive than people?" expanded with the hypothesis of return of magical thinking as an explanation of anthropomorphizing attitude towards robots]
This chapter elaborates on the issue of loving dolls and robots. The topic has been already broadly discussed by academics representing diverse disciplines as well as implemented into mass culture – mainly due to the fact that people who have strong affections towards inanimate objects are already a part of reality and cannot be perceived as a matter of distant future or a part of some science-fiction scenario anymore. On the one hand, the chapter delivers a claim that people who engage into intimate relationships with inanimate objects cannot be seen simply as crazy social outcasts, since their activity is a result of tendencies and processes that are prevalent in contemporary Western culture. In other words, the chapter argues that doll lovers and robot lovers are not following some other path than the rest of society – not only do they pursue in the same direction but they also might be simply few steps ahead. On the other hand, it is argued that further continuation of that journey involves some serious risks. In other words, the fact that we are all heading in this direction, does not mean that the direction is appropriate. The main risk is that the solipsist who create their own subjective worlds in search for personal freedom will tend to objectify other human beings and in the end they will find themselves imprisoned in a kind of autistic reality. Finally, the paper presents hypothesis that the mental processes that are connected with intimate relationships with inanimate objects are – in specific sense – connected with return of magical thinking typical for so called primitive cultures. The analyses refer not only to philosophical, psychological and sociological studies but also to popular culture, e.g. to a documentary movie Guys and Dolls and a specific episode of TV series House M.D.

This paper aims to understand why human beings develop empathetic attitudes towards robots. Whilst much research studies this issue from the perspective of the natural sciences, by referring to biological features of the human brain, it is also possible to investigate it from the perspective of the humanities by referring to humans " cultural features. After establishing animation as a necessary condition of empathy towards robots, the presentation delivers a hypothesis that magical thinking – typical for children, members of " primitive " societies and individuals with mental disorders – is involved in the empathetic relations with robots. Furthermore, arguments to defend and clarify this hypothesis are presented.

What are the best practices for leading a workforce in which human employees have merged cognitively and physically with electronic information systems and work alongside social robots, artificial life-forms, and self-aware networks that are ‘colleagues’ rather than simply ‘tools’? How does one manage organizational structures and activities that span both actual and virtual worlds? How are the forces of technological posthumanization transforming the theory and practice of management?

This volume explores the reality that an organization’s workers, managers, customers, and other stakeholders increasingly comprise a complex network of human agents, artificial agents, and hybrid human-synthetic entities. The first part of the book develops the theoretical foundations of an emerging ‘organizational posthumanism’ and presents conceptual frameworks for understanding and managing the evolving workplace relationship between human and synthetic beings.

Subsequent chapters investigate concrete management topics such as the likelihood that social robots might utilize charismatic authority to inspire and lead human workers; potential roles of AIs as managers of cross-cultural virtual teams; the ethics and legality of entrusting organizational decision-making to spatially diffuse robots that have no discernible identity or physical form; quantitative approaches to comparing the managerial capabilities of human and artificial agents; the creation of artificial life-forms that function as autonomous enterprises which evolve by competing against human businesses; neural implants as gateways that allow their human users to participate in new forms of organizational life; and the implications of advanced neuroprosthetics for information security and business model design.

As the first comprehensive application of posthumanist methodologies to the field of management, this volume will be of use to scholars and students of contemporary management and to management practitioners who must increasingly understand and guide the forces of technologization that are rapidly reshaping organizations’ form, dynamics, and societal roles.

Throughout human civilization, dance has been considered to be a means of communication. With advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Robot Technology (RT), it is now possible to create biped humanoid robots that can dance. This manuscript provides an overview of dancing robots that have been developed during the past 24 years. It then introduces several emotional flexible spine humanoid robots developed by the author. As part of the introduction, it presents the world’s first humanoid robot that can exhibit dynamic walk with flexible spine motions. This is followed by a discussion on applications, some development issues and possible future directions of research related to dancing robots.

Much thought has been given to the question of who bears moral and legal responsibility for actions performed by robots. Some argue that responsibility could be attributed to a robot if it possessed human-like autonomy and metavolitionality, and that while such capacities can potentially be possessed by a robot with a single spatially compact body, they cannot be possessed by a spatially disjunct, decentralized collective such as a robotic swarm or network. However, advances in ubiquitous robotics and distributed computing open the door to a new form of robotic entity that possesses a unitary intelligence, despite the fact that its cognitive processes are not confined within a single spatially compact, persistent, identifiable body. Such a “nonlocalizable” robot may possess a body whose myriad components interact with one another at a distance and which is continuously transforming as components join and leave the body. Here we develop an ontology for classifying such robots on the basis of their autonomy, volitionality, and localizability. Using this ontology, we explore the extent to which nonlocalizable robots—including those possessing cognitive abilities that match or exceed those of human beings—can be considered moral and legal actors that are responsible for their own actions.