Everyday robotics: robots as everyday objects

Abstract

Why are we not living yet with robots? If robots are not common everyday objects, it is maybe because we have looked for robotic applications without considering with sufficient attention what could be the experience of interacting with a robot. This article introduces the idea of a value profile, a notion intended to capture the general evolution of our experience with different kinds of objects. After discussing value profiles of commonly used objects, it offers a rapid outline of the challenging issues that must be investigated concerning immediate, short-term and long-term experience with robots. Beyond science-fiction classical archetypes, the picture emerging from this analysis is the one of versatile everyday robots, autonomously developing in interaction with humans, communicating with one another, changing shape and body in order to be adapted to their various context of use. To become everyday objects, robots will not necessary have to be useful, but they will have to be at the origins of radically new forms of experiences.