Do Social Robots Need a Face?

Half-day workshop held in conjunction with the International Conference on Social Robotics (ICSR 2024)                                                                                           23 Oct. 2024

Venue : University of Southern Denmark, Campusvej 55, Odense, Denmark

  Room U250 (V18-900a-0)

Workshop Objective

Recent advancements in AI technologies, such as large language models and specialized AI hardware, have driven a significant push toward developing general-purpose robots designed to operate in human-rich environments, such as homes, factories, and even space stations. Robots like Optimus{Tesla Bot}, GR-1, and NEO are examples of general-purpose robots designed to interact with people in various settings while specialized robots like Digit{Digit Robot}, designed for warehouse work, and Robonaut2, intended for space missions, are being created to work alongside humans. These developments highlight the growing importance of human-robot collaboration across different sectors. 

A key point to notice is that none of these robots feature faces or facial components such as eyes or mouths, and they lack the ability to exhibit facial cues, gestures, or behaviors like gaze and emotional expressions. These behaviors are crucial for conveying intentions in human communication and also play an equally important role in human-robot interactions. The absence of facial expressions and associated non-verbal cues in robots could complicate interactions, potentially making it harder for humans to interpret a robot’s actions or intentions and, in some cases, potentially leading to accidents.

However, considering that none of these robots, designed explicitly to collaborate with humans, feature a face, it becomes necessary to ask:

This workshop aims to address these questions by bringing together experts from diverse fields such as psycholinguistics, design and human-robot interaction (HRI). The goal is to initiate a multidisciplinary discussion, gathering insights from various perspectives to understand the necessity and implications of facial features in robots. The workshop's outcome will be a set of general guidelines to inform the community on best practices for designing robots that interact effectively with humans.