Robots among us: An exploratory study on the situated ethics of human-robot interactions in a public library*

Social robots are rarely confined to a task-specific or problem-specific work envelope. For instance, an assistive robot working in a senior center can incidentally become a companion or even a trusted confidante. Increasingly operating in public spaces, social robots can be easily caught in mundane yet morally ambivalent urban situations that are often dynamic, complex, and unpredictable, presenting novel factors and agencies that can quickly exceed the scope of any projected human-robot interaction. Anticipating how a robot should respond in these situations may mitigate interaction failures. To improve foresight in these situations, we propose the frame of “Situated Ethics for Urban Encounters” (SEUE) and probe this frame through 18 mundane yet morally ambivalent scenarios of human-robot interaction in a public library using the speed-dating research method with storyboards. Our findings suggest: (i) There are ambiguous but morally important interactions even in a public library; (ii) Unlike humans, robots are expected to do many things at once and some actions may risk deception; (iii) The importance of children’s rights in these situations; (iv) A need for creatively opportunistic interaction when responding to the ethical challenges of the situation; and (v) Residual risks exist even in a perceived ethical response on the part of the robot. We contribute to empirical HRI ethics by demonstrating how the speed-dating technique in a participatory design setting could be used to unpack, interpret, discuss, and elicit possible HRI responses in urban situations, which are expected to only become more important as robots show up in cities.