Dangerous HRI: Testing Real-World Robots has Real-World Consequences

Abstract

Robotic rescuers digging through rubble, fire-fighting drones flying over populated areas, robotic servers pouring hot coffee for you, and a nursing robot checking your vitals are all examples of current or near-future situations where humans and robots are expected to interact in a dangerous situation. Dangerous HRI is an as-yet understudied area of the field. We define dangerous HRI as situations where humans experience some amount of risk of bodily harm while interacting with robots. This interaction could take many forms, such as a bystander (e.g. when an autonomous car waits at a crossing for a pedestrian), as a recipient of robotic assistance (rescue robots), or as a teammate (like an autonomous robot working with a SWAT team). To facilitate better study of this area, the Dangerous HRI workshop brings together researchers who perform experiments with some risk of bodily harm to participants and discuss strategies for mitigating this risk while still maintaining validity of the experiment. This workshop does not aim to tackle the general problem of human safety around robots, but instead focused on guidelines for and experience from experimenters.