Trust and Bias in Robots

Abstract

Suppose you are walking on a sidewalk and are nearing an intersection. A flashing sign indicates that you can cross the street. To cross safely, you have to rely on nearby cars to respect the rules of the road. Robots--whether on the road, such as in the case of self-driving cars, or working in buildings, such as in the case of emergency evacuation robots--are influencing human decision-making processes. Yet whether placing trust in the technology is warranted, especially when it can mean life or death, is an open question. As robots more fully interact with humans, the role of human-robot trust and of biases integrated into the technology must be carefully investigated. The focus on trust emerges because research shows that humans tend to trust robots similarly to the way they trust other humans; thus, the concern is that people may underappreciate or misunderstand the risk associated with handing over decisions to a robot.