In an effort to create more trustworthy technology that people can easily relate to, researchers from the University of Bristol created the BERT2 robot. The bot is far from being released on the market, having only been used for research into human response to robotic helpers. Nonetheless, its emotive eyes, eyebrows and mouth have shown to have a significant impact on how humans treat it.
In the BERT2 robot study, the researchers put together a scenario where test subjects had to cook a recipe with the help of a robot handing them ingredients. There were three versions of this robot: one that wouldn't say anything and would always hand over the correct ingredient, one that wouldn't communicate and would sometimes make mistakes, and BERT2, which would communicate but also make mistakes.
The study found that, even though the BERT2 robot was less effective, people preferred the communicative, emotive bot.
What Makes This Trend Stand Out
- Trustworthy Technology
- Creating technology that people can easily relate to and trust, such as robots with expressive features like emotive eyes, eyebrows, and lips.
- Human-robot Interaction
- Exploring how humans respond to robotic helpers and studying the impact of emotive features on their behavior towards robots.
- Emotive Robotics
- Designing robots with expressive features like eyes, eyebrows, and lips that have a significant impact on how humans treat them.
Sectors Adopting This
- Robotics
- Incorporating emotive features in robots to enhance human interaction and trust, potential for applications in various industries.
- Human-machine Collaboration
- Developing technologies that improve human-robot collaboration, specifically focusing on emotive features to enhance user experience and engagement.
- User Experience Design
- Utilizing emotive features in technology to create more relatable and user-friendly products, with potential applications across industries.
