Max Robotics — Global Service Robot Directory + US Certification

About

Alan R. Wagner is a prominent robotics and AI researcher whose work sits at the intersection of human-robot interaction, trust, ethics, and autonomous systems. Best known for his groundbreaking investigations into how humans perceive and respond to robots, Wagner has fundamentally shaped our understanding of a phenomenon he has helped define: overtrust. His 2016 study on overtrust in emergency evacuation scenarios — now with 360 citations — demonstrated that people may dangerously defer to robots even when those robots perform poorly, raising urgent questions about safety and accountability in human-robot collaboration. Wagner's research consistently probes the psychological and ethical dimensions of robotic systems. His work on trust repair timing, robot deception, and moral decision-making in autonomous systems reveals a researcher equally comfortable with empirical experimentation and philosophical inquiry. His co-authored "An Introduction to Ethics in Robotics and AI" (207 citations) has become a foundational text for students entering the field. With over 1,300 cumulative citations across his most influential papers alone, Wagner's contributions have proven both timely and enduring — particularly as his COVID-19 and human-robot interaction research anticipates how global disruptions reshape the field. For any student navigating the ethics and psychology of robotics, Wagner's body of work is essential reading.