Interdisciplinary survey on the public impact of robotics

For roughly two decades a new generation of robots, robotic prostheses and implantable devices is about to arise accompanied by great optimism that they will widely pervade our daily life in a near future. This development, confirmed also by the predictions of the UN, was motivation to conduct the first large-scale survey with over 2000 participants on the following question: "Do we want to share our life and body with robots?"

The work is a collaboration with the Autonomous Systems Lab at EPFL and the Institute of Anthropology and Sociology of the University of Lausanne. It has been carried out in connection with the "Robotics" exhibition at the Swiss National Exhibition Expo.02. The questionnaire covers issues on robotics in general, service and personal robots, robotic prostheses and artificial organs. While the results testify a positive attitude towards potential robotic co-workers, flat-mates or body part, they include a number of surprising answers.

We find correlations in the data, discuss interpretations, speculate about the answers and cultural influences and finally conclude: Whom are we building robots for and what should they be like? To whom are we selling robots and how should we market them?

An internal report has been published which can be downloaded from the publications page or here [pdf-file, 460 kbytes]. Several press articles followed and a radio program in which the authors participated.