What Norms Are Social Robots Reflecting? A Socio-Legal Exploration on HRI Developers

Abstract

By relying on theory from sociology of law and data feminism, this study showcases the norms guiding development in human-robot interaction. This qualitative study consists of an ethnography of the HRI conference 2021 and expert interviews which were merged and analysed using an ethnographic content analysis method on NVivo. The socio-legal data feminist lens enables to pinpoint the lack of clear legal involvement, the reliance on the HRI community to develop, and the normative impact this has on the overall development of social robots. This study not only aims to showcase the vital role of HRI developers, but also the need for more critical scholars in this area.