Service robots in a multi-party setting: An examination of robots’ ability to detect human-to-human conflict and its effects on robot evaluations

Abstract

When we need service, we will soon be interacting with various non-human AI-powered agents. In the first phase of a transformation from human-to-human to human-to-robot service encounters, it can also be expected that many of us will share the same robot in multi-party settings in which several users are present at the same time. This setting is particularly challenging for a service robot when users have conflicting demands for what the robot should do. And conflicts are ubiquitous in human behavior. The present study examines this understudied situation with an experimental approach: a service robot’s ability to detect inter-user conflicts was manipulated (low vs. high) in a domestic setting (a kitchen). The results show that that a service robot with a high conflict-detection ability boosted (1) the perceived usefulness of the robot and (2) overall robot evaluations.