58. Social Robots that Interact with People

This chapter surveys some of the principal research trends in social robotics and its application to human–robot interaction (HRI). Social (or sociable) robots are designed to interact with people in a natural, interpersonal manner – often to achieve social-emotional goals in diverse applications such as education, health, quality of life, entertainment, communication, and collaboration. The long-term goal of creating social robots that are competent and capable partners for people is quite a challenging task. They will need to be able to communicate naturally with people using both verbal and nonverbal signals. They will need to engage us not only on a cognitive level, but on an emotional level as well. They will need a wide range of social-cognitive skills and a theory of other minds to understand human behavior, and to be intuitively understood by people. A deep understanding of human intelligence and behavior across multiple dimensions (i.e., cognitive, affective, physical, social, etc.) is necessary in order to design robots that can successfully play a beneficial role in the daily lives of people. This requires a multidisciplinary approach where the design of social robot technologies and methodologies are informed by robotics, artificial intelligence, psychology, neuroscience, human factors, design, anthropology, and more.