Human-Robot Interaction and the Ability of Robots to Engage in Humanlike Relationships

Technological advances of recent years have led to the development of humanoid robots that people interact with as a part of their daily lives. In many places, robots have been implemented in both childcare and senior care, where they entirely replace traditional caregivers and form the relationship that would typically be human-to-human, creating a greater dependence on robots. Numerous studies have shown that humans begin to allocate human characteristics to robots during their exchanges with them, and build connections similar to typical human-human relationships. This research set out to determine the extent to which robots can build humanlike relationships with people, and what this means for the future of humanity. If robots have the ability to engage in humanlike relationships, they can completely change the structure of society as robots can take a more prominent role, and possibly change our dependence on each other that has been a constant through history. This will be achieved through a survey to determine the extent to which robots are involved in the peoples’ average days, and how they personally feel towards this. It asks questions on how they interact with robots, and hypothetical situations involving more humanoid robots. I hypothesized that humans will engage with robots in similar ways to how they engage with humans. They form these relationships because of the ways they are conditioned to interact with other beings. Humans are predisposed to view other “beings” as they view each other and look for their characteristics and personality. As robots continue to be developed to more closely resemble and act like a human, they have the ability to make humanoid relationships, which can replace human-to-human relationships.