Rethinking Trust in Social Robotics

TL;DR

This paper explores the complex nature of trust in social robots, emphasizing the importance of understanding when and why humans should trust robots rather than merely fostering trust, through an interdisciplinary lens.

Contribution

It challenges the conventional focus on increasing trust in social robots by proposing a nuanced investigation into the appropriateness and purpose of human trust in robotic interactions.

Findings

Trust is rooted in anthropomorphism and natural human characteristics.

Trust in HRI influences user acceptance and task pursuit.

Ethical and philosophical concerns about trusting robots are significant.

Abstract

In 2018 the European Commission highlighted the demand of a human-centered approach to AI. Such a claim is gaining even more relevance considering technologies specifically designed to directly interact and physically collaborate with human users in the real world. This is notably the case of social robots. The domain of Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) emerged to investigate these issues. "Human-robot trust" has been highlighted as one of the most challenging and intriguing factors influencing HRI. On the one hand, user studies and technical experts underline how trust is a key element to facilitate users' acceptance, consequently increasing the chances to pursue the given task. On the other hand, such a phenomenon raises also ethical and philosophical concerns leading scholars in these domains to argue that humans should not trust robots. However, trust in HRI is not an index of fragility, it is rooted in anthropomorphism, and it is a natural characteristic of every human being. Thus, instead of focusing solely on how to inspire user trust in social robots, this paper argues that what should be investigated is to what extent and for which purpose it is suitable to trust robots. Such an endeavour requires an interdisciplinary approach taking into account (i) technical needs and (ii) psychological implications.