Lucas Schmidt

Papers

Total Citations

107

H-Index

About

Lucas Schmidt is a pioneering researcher in social robotics and human-robot interaction, with a particular focus on how autonomous systems can integrate into and influence online social networks. His most-cited work, "You followed my bot! Transforming robots into influential users in Twitter" (2013, 107 citations), challenged conventional metrics of social influence by demonstrating that simple, automated bots could be designed to achieve high perceived influence on Twitter—a finding that questioned the validity of popular influence-ranking algorithms. This provocative study has become a cornerstone reference in discussions about bot detection, online authenticity, and the fragility of social network metrics. Schmidt’s research bridges robotics, computational social science, and network analysis, exploring how machines can not only participate in but actively shape human social dynamics. His work has been widely cited in both academic literature and media analyses of bot behavior, and it continues to inform debates on platform governance and algorithmic transparency. By exposing the subjectivity of influence measurement, Schmidt has made a lasting contribution to our understanding of trust and agency in human-robot social ecosystems.