Stop Pretending Social Robots Are Inevitable

2026-06-30

AI Summary

This work critiques the prevailing tendency in human-robot interaction (HRI) research to presuppose the inevitability of social robots, a stance that often reflects technological determinism and solutionism while overlooking ecological validity, genuine societal needs, and the core cognitive capacities underpinning social interaction. Challenging this narrative, the study advocates abandoning assumptions about the unavoidable emergence of social robots and instead proposes a paradigm grounded in cognitive mechanisms. By critically reassessing existing theoretical frameworks, it emphasizes the development of key capabilities that would enable robots to achieve authentic social agency. This approach offers a novel theoretical direction for HRI, redirecting the field toward research anchored in real-world demands and scientific rigor, thereby fostering more substantive theoretical and technological advances.

Abstract

This paper takes issue with the recent themes of both the RO-MAN and the HRI conferences for their portrayal of a future human-robot society as inevitable. The focus is on discussing how such statements ultimately shape research. By treating a future human-robot society as a fait accompli, license is given for user studies to imagine any scenario they like, no matter whether it has any ecological relevance, and to emphasise the scenario design over actually creating robot abilities needed to fullfill the imagined role. Meanwhile, research that focusses on actual societal needs, without assuming that robots are a solution, is deprioritised, as is technical development, in particular with respect to abilities that are necessary to enable robots that function as social agents rather than a mere automation of tasks. A frame that simply assumes a robot future not only detracts from scientific advancement in favour of a techno-solutionism we ought to resist, it is also self-defeating as it risks stifling the research needed to bring it about. We should therefore reject attempts to frame and promote the field in terms of the inevitable social robot and instead focus on one that facilitates advances in the field regardless of what the future holds. This paper suggests that a renewed focus on cognitive mechanisms necessary for the "I" in HRI would be a good starting point.

Problem

• social robots
• techno-solutionism
• human-robot interaction
• research bias
• ecological validity

Innovation

• social robots
• human-robot interaction
• techno-solutionism
• cognitive mechanisms
• research framing