Robots Becoming Part of the Family

Posted 11 Jun 2007 at 19:47 UTC by steve

LiveScience reports that a new NSF study on the social impact of robots reveals that the iRobot Roomba is becoming part of the families who buy it. While people sometimes noted that the Roomba wasn't ideally suited to cleaning their house, they frequently named the robots and treated them as if they had personalities. The study also revealed that pets reacted to the robots in much the same way as the humans. One cat became friends with the Roomba, sitting near it to keep it company. A geriatric dog was reported to be scared of the Roomba. One family noted that letting their daughter "adopt" the Roomba result her cleaning her room much more frequently. This research was done by Jodi Forlizzi who has done previous studies of Human-Robot interaction.