How safe are service robots in urban environments? Bullying a robot

TLDR

Abuses toward robots, if unaddressed, could hinder their future deployment and compromise safety. The study aims to assess robot social acceptability and highlight the need for early design solutions to address abuse. The authors observed public interactions with robots and defined bullying as any improper or violent behaviour intended to damage or impede the robot. Young people reacted with extreme curiosity and often treated robots aggressively.

Abstract

This paper describes and discusses the preliminary results of a behavioural study on robot social acceptability, which was carried out during a public demonstration in South Korea. Data was collected by means of direct observation of people behaviour during interaction with robots. The most interesting result to emerge is that of young people: they tended to react to the robots presence with extreme curiosity and, quite often, to treat them aggressively. In this paper, the word bullying is used to describe any kind of improper and violent behaviour, intended to cause damages or impede the robot operation. It is the authors' opinion that if not tackled appropriately, abuses towards robots may become a serious hindrance to their future deployment, and safety. Hence, the necessity to tackle this issue with dedicated solutions during the early phases of design.