TRAITS 2021

Welcome to The Road to a successful HRI: AI, Trust and ethicS - TRAITS Workshop!

This workshop is held in conjunction with the ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI 2021) conference. Both the workshop and main conference will be held virtually. The Workshop will be held on March 12th at 8:00-12:00 MST / 16:00 -20:00 CET.

Statement of Objectives

The increasing presence of robots in human-centred environments requires natural robot behaviours to ensure a successful and efficient human-robot interaction (HRI). Guaranteeing such high quality HRIs is very challenging due to the inherent uncertainty of human-robot dynamics involving the perception, reasoning and decision-making of robots and people. In such realities, robots and people need to be able to cooperate together to reach a goal, which can only be achieved if people accept and trust robots to complete their task and prevent any potential harm (emotional or physical) to people and their belongings. Then, they need to correctly interpret the other's behaviour, and act accordingly. Finally, they need to be able to adapt and communicate their intention and internal state in a way that the other counterpart can understand and accept, e.g. through social cues.

Successful HRIs, therefore, can be guaranteed by designing robots:

1) able to autonomously sense and react to the situation, people and the environment by integrating artificial intelligence (AI) techniques;

2) such that people feel comfortable to interact with robots and trust them to reach intended outcomes, and

3) by adhering to ethical and legal principles.

In this context, this workshop aims to explore successful HRI from a multidisciplinary perspective to analyse the different aspects of HRI that impact its success. Particular focus are the AI algorithms required to implement autonomous interactions, and the factors that enhance, undermine, or recover humans' trust in robots. Finally, potential ethical and legal concerns, and how they can be addressed will be considered.

Target Audience

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Evaluation of human-robot interaction quality;

• Human factors affecting successful HRI;

• Mental models in HRI;

• XAI in HRI;

• Trustworthy AI;

• Antecedents of Trust and Human-Robot Trust;

• The impact of social robots on acceptance in HRI;

• Legal frameworks for trustworthy robotics;

• Ethics implications in HRI

News

• The Workshop proceedings are available at the following link on arXiv -> https://arxiv.org/abs/2103.12679

• Dr. Pericle Salvini, University of Oxford, has been confirmed as an invited speaker, particularly covering the Ethics and Law in HRI topic.

• The Workshop will be held on March 12th.

• Prof. Tony Prescott, University of Sheffield, has been confirmed as an invited speaker, particularly covering the AI in HRI topic.

• Prof. Kerstin Dautenhahn, University of Waterloo, has been confirmed as an invited speaker, particularly covering the Trust and acceptance in HRI topic.

• The first edition of TRAITS workshop has been accepted at HRI 2021.