How Do We Trust Our Robots?

Abstract

Abstract Trust plays the most important role in accepting social robots in our communities, especially in an era where robots take part in daily activities in close distance with humans. While some communities accept the presence of robots in their surrounding, others are less open to them. Furthermore, this acceptance depends on a large number of factors which are specific to the communities as well as the deployed robots. We conducted a survey to explore the aspects which people would consider if they had an option to deploy a robot at home and assign responsibilities to it. The study will help direct future researches on embodied intelligence in robots towards a more human-accepted level. The paper presents a human study conducted to evaluate the trust between humans and robots. We present the feedback we received from the participants to assess the level of trust participants have on their robots and their personal preferences upon the abilities of robots. Human responses and their decisions observed during the study are analyzed and critical observations are highlighted. From the analysis we derive a set of guidelines to improve human trust in future robots by adjusting their humanlike social behaviors.