How do university students imagine aggression towards robots through speculative design?

What is it about?

Aggression as a social behaviour towards technology has been highlighted in Human-Computer Interaction over a decade ago and recently found a renewed interest in the niche of robot abuse. However, a lack of operationalisation and definition of this behaviour resulted in specific-domain observations that hinder generalisations of the determinants that explain it. This paper presents a theoretically grounded workshop that aims to explore how university students imagine aggression towards robots through speculative design. A total of 69 participants, divided into seven workshops, took part in elaborating stories of aggression towards robots using the inspiration cards “Humans against Robots”. The results highlighted nuances of aggression that do not entirely fit the traditional definitions of psychological aggression, nor the term abuse, prompting a new operationalisation of this concept. Aggression towards robots is presented using four different behaviours: 1) Outburst against annoying tools; 2) Clash with conflicting companions; 3) Oppression of faithful tools; 4) Rebellion against unfriendly companions. These forms are represented in an orthogonal space according to the function of aggression (reactive vs proactive) and the identity attributed to the robot (subject vs object). This paper supports the importance of investigating sociotechnical imaginaries to understand the heterogeneity of behaviours and determinants that can explain aggression against robots. The space of user aggression in Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) allows for distinguishing between the different sociotechnical imaginaries that aggression against robots evokes and that designers and researchers might consider when exploring this topic.

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Why is it important?

In Western societies, robots are starting to be part of our lives. Some research assumes that humans relate to robots (especially to those looking like humans) using social norms learned through interactions with other people. Research on robots shows that aggression is part of the way people interact with them. In our study we add to this work by showing nuances of aggression that do not entirely fit the traditional definitions of psychological aggression, nor the term abuse, prompting a new operationalisation of this concept.

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