What Kind of Human-centric Robotics do We Need?: Investigations from Human-robot Interactions in Socially Assistive Scenarios

Today we are witnessing an increased robotisation in all areas of society, from manufacturing to assistive technology, from healthcare to education. These application areas require robots to be able to interact with humans in an efficient and socially acceptable manner. At the same time, like all technologies, robots may not only bring benefits, but also change how we think and behave. This calls for human-robot interaction researchers to design and develop more human-centric and trustworthy artificial intelligence and robotics, which put humans at the center and preserve human agency and autonomy, where robots adapt to the way humans communicate in the world, rather than the other way around. My research career has been devoted to the questions surrounding whether and how machines should embody human-like qualities, in order to be truly human-centric and trustworthy. In this talk I will present examples of human-robot interaction studies and technical advances in socially assistive scenarios from my research at the Uppsala Social Robotics Lab [1], investigating different levels of human-like qualities in robots, from appearance to behaviours and their synergies, in the quest for more human-centric robots.