In this paper, we explore the role that theories of Social Justice from the Engineering Education literature may play in the field of AI-HRI, explore the extent to which the recommendations made by such theories are or are not already being followed in our community, and envision a future in which our research community takes guidance from these theories. In particular, we explore the recent past and envisioned futures of AI-HRI through the lens of the Engineering for Social Justice (E4SJ) framework due to its emphasis on contextual listening and enhancement of human capabilities.
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This content will become publicly available on March 1, 2025
Robots for Social Justice (R4SJ): Toward a More Equitable Practice of Human-Robot Interaction
In this work, we present Robots for Social Justice (R4SJ): a framework
for an equitable engineering practice of Human-Robot Interaction,
grounded in the Engineering for Social Justice (E4SJ) framework
for Engineering Education and intended to complement existing
frameworks for guiding equitable HRI research. To understand the
new insights this framework could provide to the field of HRI, we
analyze the past decade of papers published at the ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction, and examine
how well current HRI research aligns with the principles espoused
in the E4SJ framework. Based on the gaps identified through this
analysis, we make five concrete recommendations, and highlight
key questions that can guide the introspection for engineers, designers, and researchers. We believe these considerations are a
necessary step not only to ensure that our engineering education
efforts encourage students to engage in equitable and societally
beneficial engineering practices (the purpose of E4SJ), but also to ensure that the technical advances we present at conferences like HRI
promise true advances to society, and not just to fellow researchers
and engineers.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2044865
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10488565
- Publisher / Repository:
- ACM
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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