Encounters with indoor delivery robots: a sociological analysis of non-verbal behaviours towards robots

Abstract

This paper explores how people behave towards robots when encountering them in public spaces and examines the ways they interact differently with robots compared to humans. Using video data collected in an office building where a fleet of delivery robots is deployed, and drawing on classical sociological theories of people's non-verbal behaviour in public spaces, we provide examples of encounters between robots and bystanders. We focus on the ways in which people routinely acknowledge the presence of and make their own presence visible to other people in shared or public spaces. We then analyse interactions with robots in public spaces and argue that while it may often seem at first glance that people treat robots as social agents, there is in fact very little mutual engagement in incidental encounters due to the robot's limited embodied and social presence. We finally address possible directions for interaction and robot behaviour policy design for service robots in public or open environments.