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About

Kosuke Wakabayashi is a pioneering researcher at the intersection of human-robot interaction, artificial intelligence, and legal decision-making. His work focuses on how AI and robotic systems can serve as decision-support tools in high-stakes environments, particularly within judicial contexts. Wakabayashi's most influential contribution, "Can AI become a Reliable Source to Support Human Decision Making in a Court Scene?" (2017, 36 citations), opened a provocative new frontier by empirically examining whether robotic advisers can meaningfully shape juror judgments. Building on this foundation, he has systematically explored the psychological and social dimensions of human-robot trust, including the role of social presence — comparing physical robots to computer-generated counterparts — and the phenomenon of robophobia, or ingrained negative attitudes toward robots that may bias decision-making outcomes. His 2020 work further probes how prior knowledge and mental models about robots influence their perceived credibility in courtroom settings. Collectively, Wakabayashi's research raises urgent ethical and practical questions about integrating AI into justice systems, making his scholarship essential reading for anyone interested in the future of human-AI collaboration in society's most consequential decision-making arenas.