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As humanoid robot technology, anthropomorphized by artificial intelligence (AI), has rapidly advanced to introduce more human-resembling automated robots that can communicate, interact, and work like humans, we have begun to expect active interactions with Humanoid AI Robots (HAIRs) in the near future. Coupled with the HAIR technology development, the COVID-19 pandemic triggered our interest in using health care robots with many substantial advantages that overcome critical human vulnerabilities against the strong infectious COVID-19 virus. Recognizing the tremendous potential for the active application of HAIRs, this article explores feasible ways to implement HAIRs in health care and patient services and suggests recommendations for strategically developing and diffusing autonomous HAIRs in health care facilities. While discussing the integration of HAIRs into health care, this article points out some important ethical concerns that should be addressed for implementing HAIRs for health care services.

This article examines the emerging phenomenon of humanoid social robots and human-humanoid interactions. A central argument of this article is that humanoid social robots belong to a special type of robotic technology used for communicating and interacting with humans. These robotic entities, which can be in either mechanical or digital form, are autonomous, interactive and humanlike. Some of them are used to interact with humans for utilitarian purposes and others are designed to trigger human emotions. Incorporation of such robotic entities into the realm of social life invariably alters the condition as well as the dynamics of human interaction, giving rise to a synthetic society in which humans co-mingle with humanoids. More research is needed to investigate the social and cultural impact of this unfolding robotic revolution.

En este proyecto se hace el control de las extremidades superiores de una plataforma robótica humanoide utilizando la técnica de motion retargeting, que redirige los movimientos de un operador humano al androide. El sistema propuesto hace uso del microsoft kinect para reconocer las articulaciones del operador, posteriormente hace un cambio de coordenadas, verificación de los límites de los ángulos permitidos por la plataforma y finalmente se transmiten los movimientos al robot para que 'imite' los movimientos del operador, actualmente el sistema reproduce dos grados de libertad en cada hombro, uno en cada codo y uno en la cintura. Con este proyecto se pueden realizar rutinas de movimientos para la plataforma sin necesidad de marcas especiales y/o cables sobre el operario, y se evitan procedimientos invasivos

In the coming decades, humanoid robots will play a rising role in society. The present article discusses their walking control and obstacle avoidance on uneven terrain using enhanced spring-loaded inverted pendulum model (ESLIP). The SLIP model is enhanced by tuning it with an adaptive particle swarm optimization (APSO) approach. It helps the humanoid robot to reach closer to the obstacles in order to optimize the turning angle to optimize the path length. The desired trajectory, along with the sensory data, is provided to the SLIP model, which creates compatible COM (center of mass) dynamics for stable walking. This output is fed to APSO as input, which adjusts the placement of the foot during interaction with uneven surfaces and obstacles. It provides an optimum turning angle for shunning the obstacles and ensures the shortest path length. Simulation has been carried out in a 3D simulator based on the proposed controller and SLIP controller in uneven terrain.

Beginning with an introduction to the robot Wakamaru, followed by the origins and current definitions of the word "robot," this essay interrogates the differences between sex and gender in humans and humanoids, with a focus on Japanese robots. I compare the gender technologies employed in the all-male Kabuki theatre, which emerged in the early 1600s, and in the all-female Takarazuka Revue, founded in 1913, and elucidate their influence on the attribution and "performance" of robot gender. I argue that human actors and humanoid robots alike simultaneously call attention to the mutable artifice of gendered identities and recuperate the binary construction of gender, reinforcing in the process heteronormative conventions of being in the world. (Asien/GIGA)

AbstractConsidering the growing acceptance of humanoid robots in the service industry, this study aimed to examine their negative impact on service evaluation, as well as the underlying mechanism of perceived effort and the moderating role of consumer mindset. Three experiments that used different service scenarios revealed that humanoid service robots negatively affected service evaluation compared to human employees, and this effect was mediated by decreased perceived effort. Furthermore, this negative impact was attenuated when consumers had a concrete mindset compared to abstract. This work contributes to both consumer service and robot literature by elaborating on the possible adverse influence of replacing human employees with humanoid service robots. It also offers managerial implications for how and when to adopt a robot service in this machine age.

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to examine how robotic anthropomorphism and personalized design may affect consumers' reactions to brands after service failure.Design/methodology/approachThis study conducted two studies based on cognitive appraisal theory and artificial intelligence device acceptance theory. Study 1 explored the mechanisms by which the type of anthropomorphic design of the service robot (humanoid robot/nonhumanoid robot) influenced revisit intention after service failure through a one-factor between-subjects design based on a restaurant dining scenario. Study 2 was based on a hotel check-in scenario and explored the moderating effect of robot personalization design on the above mechanisms through a 2 (anthropomorphic design: humanoid robot/nonhumanoid robot) × 2 (personalized design: self-name/no name) between-subjects design.FindingsStudy 1 shows that consumers have higher performance expectations for nonhumanoid robots, leading to a higher tolerance for service failure, which in turn generates higher revisit intentions. Study 2 shows that consumers' performance expectations are significantly enhanced after custom naming of humanoid robots, so the serial mediation mechanism for the effect of robot anthropomorphic design on revisit intention does not hold.Originality/valueThis study extends the research of artificial intelligence device acceptance theory in the field of service failure and exploratively proposes an intervention mechanism for the negative effects of the anthropomorphic design of service robots.

Objective: The current status of human–robot interaction (HRI) is reviewed, and key current research challenges for the human factors community are described. Background: Robots have evolved from continuous human-controlled master–slave servomechanisms for handling nuclear waste to a broad range of robots incorporating artificial intelligence for many applications and under human supervisory control. Methods: This mini-review describes HRI developments in four application areas and what are the challenges for human factors research. Results: In addition to a plethora of research papers, evidence of success is manifest in live demonstrations of robot capability under various forms of human control. Conclusions: HRI is a rapidly evolving field. Specialized robots under human teleoperation have proven successful in hazardous environments and medical application, as have specialized telerobots under human supervisory control for space and repetitive industrial tasks. Research in areas of self-driving cars, intimate collaboration with humans in manipulation tasks, human control of humanoid robots for hazardous environments, and social interaction with robots is at initial stages. The efficacy of humanoid general-purpose robots has yet to be proven. Applications: HRI is now applied in almost all robot tasks, including manufacturing, space, aviation, undersea, surgery, rehabilitation, agriculture, education, package fetch and delivery, policing, and military operations.

Roboticists developing socially interactive robots seek to design them in such a way that humans will readily anthropomorphize them. For this anthropomorphizing to occur, robots need to display emotion‐like responses to elicit empathy from the person, so as to enable social interaction. This article focuses on roboticists' efforts to create emotion‐like responses in humanoid robots. In particular, I investigate the extent to which the cultural dimensions of emotion and empathy are factored into these endeavors. Recent research suggests that mirror neurons or other brain structures may have a role to play in empathy and imitation. Notwithstanding this, the effect of sociocultural experience in shaping appropriate empathic responses and expectations is also crucial. More broadly, this article highlights how we are literally anthropomorphizing technology, even as the complexity of technology and the role it plays in our lives grows. Both the actual design process and the understanding of how technology shapes our daily lives are core applied dimensions of this work, from carrying out the research to capturing the critical implications of these technological innovations.

Jennifer Robertson's Robo Sapiens Japanicus: Robots, Gender, Family, and the Japanese Nation assesses the robot phenomenon in Japan within the last decade. Offering sustained critiques on contemporary techno-fix narratives, Robertson reveals how humanoid robots are designed and deployed to reify conservative values under the guise of technological advancements. Robertson's impressive ethnographic project weaves together robots of science fact and fiction, leaving readers to interrogate how humanoids, androids, gynoids, and cyborgs both challenge and reify existing social structures across the globe.

Life-likeness is a property that can be used both to deceive people that a robot is more intelligent than it is or to facilitate the natural communication with humans. Over the years, different criteria have guided the design of intelligent systems, ranging from attempts to produce human-like language to trying to make a robot look like an actual human. We outline some relevant historical developments that all rely on different forms of mimicry of human life or intelligence. Many such approaches have been to some extent successful. However, we want to argue that there are ways to exploit aspects of life-likeness without deception. A life-like robot has advantages in communicating with humans, not because we believe it to be alive, but rather because we react instinctively to certain aspects of life-like behavior as this can make a robot easier to understand and allows us to better predict its actions. Although there may be reasons for trying to design robots that look exactly like humans for specific research purposes, we argue that it is subtle behavioral cues that are important for understandable robots rather than life-likeness in itself. To this end, we are developing a humanoid robot that will be able to show human-like movements while still looking decidedly robotic, thus exploiting the our ability to understand the behaviors of other people based on their movements.