Humanoid co-workers : how is it like to work with a robot?

Abstract

Human-robot interaction in corporate workplaces is a research area which remains unexplored. In this paper, we present the results and analysis of a social experiment we conducted by introducing a humanoid robot (Nadine) into a collaborative social workplace. The humanoid's primary task was to function as a receptionist and provide general assistance to the customers. Moreover, the employees who interacted with Nadine were given over a month to get used to her capabilities, after which, the feedback was collected from the staff on the grounds of influence on productivity, affect experienced during interaction and their views on social robots assisting with regular tasks. Our results show that the usage of social robots for assisting with normal day-to-day tasks is taken quite positively by the co-workers and that in the near future, more capable humanoid social robots can be used in workplaces for assisting with menial tasks. Finally, we posit that surveys such as ours could result in constructive opinions based on technological awareness, rather than opinions from media-driven fears about the threats of technology.