ICSR 2024 Workshop by Chinmaya Mishra

Workshop:  Do Social Robots Need a Face

Recent advancements in AI technologies, such as large language models and specialized AI hardware, have driven a significant push toward developing general-purpose robots designed to operate in human-rich environments, such as homes, factories, and even space stations. However, a key point to notice is that none of the newer robots feature faces or facial components such as eyes or mouths, and they lack the ability to exhibit facial cues, gestures, or behaviors like gaze and emotional expressions. These behaviors are crucial for conveying intentions in human communication and also play an equally important role in human-robot interactions. The absence of facial expressions and associated non-verbal cues in robots could complicate interactions, potentially making it harder for humans to interpret a robot’s actions or intentions and, in some cases, potentially leading to accidents.

However, considering that none of these robots, designed explicitly to collaborate with humans, feature a face, it becomes necessary to ask:

• Do social robots need a face? If so, why?
• What do we gain by having a face on a robot?
• If not, how do we overcome the challenges of conveying intentionality and avoid misunderstandings or accidents?

This workshop aimed to address these questions by bringing together experts from diverse fields. The goal was to initiate a multidisciplinary discussion, gathering insights from various perspectives to understand the necessity and implications of facial features in robots. The workshop was organized successfully with over 20 participants and three invited speakers; Prof. Judith Holler gave her view on the topic from a psycholinguistics perspective, Prof. Joakim Gustafsson discussed the topic from the human-robot interaction (HRI) perspective, and Prof. Majken K. Rasmussen approached the topic from a design perspective. The workshop's outcome will be a set of general guidelines to inform the community on best practices for designing robots that interact effectively with humans.