Culturally Variable Preferences for Robot Design and Use in South Korea, Turkey, and the United States

Should a robot try to be our friend or just a tool we use? 🤔

Library › Papers on Children, Robots, and AI

1. Young Children and ChatGPT: Parents' Use of ChatGPT in Parenting

2. Exploring Parent's Needs for Children-Centered AI to Support Preschoolers' Storytelling and Reading Activities

3. Child–Robot Interaction Across Cultures: How Does Playing a Game With a Social Robot Compare to Playing a Game Alone or With a Friend?

4. Culturally Variable Preferences for Robot Design and Use in South Korea, Turkey, and the United States

5. Child–robot relationship formation: A narrative review of empirical research

6. Shall I Trust You? From Child–Robot Interaction to Trusting Relationships

7. Aladdin’s Genie or Pandora’s Box for early childhood education? Experts chat on the roles, challenges, and developments of ChatGPT

8. Challenging ChatGPT 'Intelligence' with human tools: a neuropsychological investigation on prefrontal functioning of a large language model

9. Dialogue with a Conversational Agent Promotes Children's Story Comprehension via Enhancing Engagement

10. Investigation on Empathy Towards Humans and Robots using fMRI

11. Using Near Infrared Spectroscopy to Index Temporal Changes in Affect in Realistic Human-Robot Interactions

12. "Robovie, you'll have to go into the closet now": Children's social and moral relationships with a humanoid robot

13. The Now and Future of ChatGPT and GPT in Psychiatry

14. Digital Inequality and Developmental Trajectories of Low-income, Immigrant, and Minority Children

15. Family Learning Talk in AI Literacy Learning Activities

16. A Social Robot Connected with ChatGPT to Improve Cognitive Functioning in ASD Subjects

17. Humans Create More Novelty Than ChatGPT When Asked to Retell a Story

18. When He Feels Cold, He Goes to the Seahorse—Blending Generative AI into Multimaterial Storymaking for Family Expressive Arts Therapy

19. Large Language Models Have Divergent Effects on Self-Perceptions of Mind and the Attributes Considered Uniquely Human

20. Ascribing Consciousness to Artificial Intelligence: Human-AI Interaction and its Carry-Over Effects on Human-Human Interaction

21. Assessment of Engagement and Learning During Child-Robot Interaction using EEG Signals

22. Can Machines Think? Interaction and Perspective Taking with Robots Investigated via fMRI

23. Investigating Conversational Dynamics in Human-Robot Interaction with fMRI

24. "Rosita Reads With My Family": Developing A Bilingual Conversational Agent to Support Parent-Child Shared Reading

Interesting paper I read today:

Culturally Variable Preferences for Robot Design and Use in South Korea, Turkey, and the United States

Authors:
Hee Rin Lee
Selma Šabanović

Below is a brief summary I wrote:

Culture is associated with different social norms, beliefs, and expectations, which can influence people’s expectations and preferences regarding a robot’s role in their everyday lives.

In this online survey study, the researchers recruited adult participants from three countries: Korea, the United States, and Turkey.

The most distinctive cultural differences emerged in participants' preferences for the robot’s role in their lives.

Korean and Turkish participants want robots to be present in various everyday settings, such as the home, school, and workplace, more so than participants from the United States.

Korean participants, in particular, preferred that robots have social roles, though they predominantly saw these roles as supportive, such as assistants.

In contrast, U.S. participants preferred that robots not assume social roles but rather function as tools to be used. Interestingly, religious affiliation did not significantly influence preferences regarding robot characteristics across the three countries.

However, culturally based beliefs had a strong impact. For example, in Korea, the statement reflecting Confucian values—“A robot should know how to bow and whom to bow to”—was strongly associated with the acceptance of robots at home, a preference for human-like appearance, and a preference for female robots.

These findings suggest that while Koreans are open to robots playing social roles in their everyday lives, they expect these robots to embody cultural values such as social hierarchy and to play a subservient role in assisting with daily tasks.

The findings highlight the importance of understanding social norms within cultural contexts when designing robots intended to assist with various aspects of people’s lives.

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5. Child–robot relationship formation: A narrative review of empirical research