Robots marketed as social companions of the future usually do not meet the expectations placed on them. Astrid Weiss from the research area for human-computer interaction at the Vienna University of Technology (TU Wien) comes to this conclusion in her current study .

Purpose is missing

“It's not because of any special reluctance to deal with the robot. The phenomenon has nothing to do with hostility to technology. “But there is simply no concrete, everyday use,” says Weiss. Such a device seems interesting at the beginning, but after a few weeks many people hardly use the robot anymore.

For seven months, Weiss and her team examined eight different households that received a social robot. The households had different social backgrounds, but were generally technology-savvy. The aim was to find out how the interaction between humans and robots changes over time.

Entertaining but useless

The results were clear - and sobering for robot manufacturers: At the beginning the robots had a certain entertainment value, they were tried out and demonstrated, but after just a few weeks this enthusiasm died down and most of the robots were no longer used. There was no increased use even during the COVID-19 lockdowns.

Article image: Pexels
Source: PT

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