Identity and Community Matter(s): Exploring Socio-cultural Dimensions of Functional Service Robots Acceptance in Public Spaces

As autonomous functional robots proliferate in public spaces, understanding their acceptance among diverse populations becomes crucial. Traditional models of technology acceptance focus on behavioral and cognitive factors, overlooking the socio-cultural and temporal scaffolding of human-robot interaction. To address this gap, we present two themes (Identity Matters, Community Matters) resulting from a qualitative analysis of ethnographic interviews (n = 20) with passersby and vendors who have experienced Starship delivery robots deployed in their communities. Situating the outcomes of our analysis in relation to existing technology acceptance models, we offer five lessons contributing to the efforts in understanding existence and usage-related acceptance of autonomous functional robots in public spaces.