In one experiment, we asked 170 participants to imagine they were in a medical clinic to book a visit for a hemorrhoid problem. Half of them imagined speaking to a human receptionist and half to a robotic receptionist. We measured people\u2019s level of embarrassment in that situation and we found that people felt less embarrassed when they had to provide information about their medical condition to a robot rather than a human receptionist.<\/p>\n
Humans tend to feel embarrassed when we are concerned about what other people may think or feel about us. Other research in the consumer behavior field has shown<\/a> that the mere presence of others, even when only imagined, is enough to elicit embarrassment.<\/p>\n Our research found that people don\u2019t feel embarrassed with robots because they don\u2019t believe that robots can form judgments or display emotions<\/a>. In our second experiment, we asked participants to imagine they were in a pharmacy to collect an anti-fungal treatment. As in the previous study, we split the groups up, so half-imagined speaking with a human pharmacist and the other half with a robot. We then measured not only how embarrassed they would have been, but also how much they thought that the robot had specific mental abilities such as emotions and judgments. The participants felt that as robots lack both of them they wouldn\u2019t be able to hold opinions.<\/p>\n Recent versions of humanoid robots such as Sophia<\/a> are capable of emulating a wide range of human expressions, and we even humanize them by giving them names. Despite this, our research group found that participants felt robots did not judge their behavior.<\/p>\n Take Curly, a robot designed to play curling, a sport where players slide stones on a sheet of ice toward a target area. When, last year, Curly<\/a> won against the curling\u2019s human elite team, it did not win on purpose. It just played the game it had been programmed to play, indifferent to whether it was playing it any better or worse than anyone else.<\/p>\n This inability to judge our behavior is what makes robots the preferred option in embarrassing situations.<\/p>\n When interviewing people about embarrassing situations, we also found they preferred robots because you could not meet a robotic assistant on the street after an embarrassing purchase, and that people worry about these things.<\/p>\n When asking robots embarrassing questions, we also do not risk the uncomfortable small talk that we might have with humans.<\/p>\n Taking humans out of a situation has been used to reduce embarrassment in the past. For example, consumers can purchase products such as condoms and tampons from vending machines, avoiding awkward interactions in stores. A recent survey discovered that consumers are willing to pay more for personal hygiene products online<\/a>, just to avoid the embarrassment of buying in a store.<\/p>\n Robots might not gossip about us but they do collect more data than a human ever could \u2013 and they store it for longer. In the research, participants did raise concerns about privacy and robots storing their data, but many felt they already handed over a lot of personal information every day via their phones and therefore didn\u2019t worry about it too much.<\/p>\n The use of service robots is rising today and sales of robot technologies are projected to reach US$912 million<\/a> by 2026. The pandemic has also accelerated the deployment of these technologies, and with them a significant loss of jobs around the world. Only in the last year, the number of robots adopted in hospital receptions, hotels, airports, and restaurants increased considerably<\/a>.<\/p>\nRobots don\u2019t judge<\/h2>\n
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