UNIVERSITY OF HERTFORDSHIRE
             COMPUTER SCIENCE RESEARCH COLLOQUIUM

                            presents

     
	          "Authenticity in Social Robotics "
	

                        Prof. Frauke Zeller
                   (Edinburgh Napier University)

                        7 February 2024 
                        13:00 -14:00 
                          Room C154

                  Everyone is Welcome to Attend
				  
				                               

Abstract:

In this talk I will present recent studies into the design and programming of social robots ranging from AI-enhanced robots in healthcare settings to robots in the wild, acting independently with humans. One common factor in building successful social robots is said to be authenticity. However, authenticity in social robots is also a wicked problem: Authenticity can be connected to a robots’ truthfulness or level of trust and capability, as well as its overall likeness to a human actor. In fact, one design paradigm of social robots is to develop them as close to imitating human behaviour as possible so that social interaction can take centre stage rather than human users having to adapt too much to the technology. This objective, if successfully implemented, erases an important ontological division between humans and machines, which then can lead to confusion and mismatched performance regarding the human users’ expectations. In my talk I will ask the question How authentic does a robot have to be? And how do we ask the right (ethical) questions when building authentic social robots?



---------------------------------------------------
Hertfordshire Computer Science Research Colloquium
http://cs-colloq.cs.herts.ac.uk