Human-Centered Designed Robots are All Around Us

Robots are no longer only in outer space, in factory cages, or in our imaginations. We interact with robotic agents when withdrawing cash from ATMs, driving cars with anti-lock brakes, and tuning our thermostats. In the moment of those interactions with robotic agents, we behave in ways that do not necessarily align with the rational belief that robots are just plain machines. Through a combination of controlled experiments and field studies, we will explore ways that human and robotic agents come together, including how people interact with personal robots and how people interact through telepresence robots. We hope to explore topics and raise questions about the psychology of human-robot interaction and how we could invent a future of robotics that is human-centered by design.

Speaker: Leila Takayama