Programming Tools Shape How Social Robots Speak to People

Social robots are not just products of engineers' imagination, but also artifacts shaped by very concrete programming tools, claims a recent study. The work demonstrates how the interaction skills of robotics experts are limited and directed in a new way when they are translated into rule-based robot behavior using certain tools.

The study examines the French-origin technology company Aldebaran, known as the developer of the Pepper and NAO social robots. These robots are intended to engage in conversations with people, for example, in customer service or education. Through long-term ethnographic fieldwork, robotics developers were followed in their daily lives, and it was meticulously documented what kind of tools are used to script and program the robots.

Attention is drawn to the programming tools themselves: their predefined variables, publicly available events, information hierarchies, data flows, and instructions. According to the study, it is precisely these features that guide what kind of speech robots can produce at all and what kind of interaction situations they are suitable for. The tools facilitate the construction of certain forms of speech but simultaneously exclude other possibilities.

Thus, the study highlights the social construction of social robots: "sociality" does not arise only from the external appearance of robots or the goals of developers, but also from the constraints and possibilities of very material tools. The findings emphasize that conversational AI and social robots are always also products of their programming environments – not just neutral technical implementations.

Source: Social robots as designed artifacts: the impact of programming tools on “human–robot interaction”, AI & SOCIETY.