Social Robots in the Home: What Factors Influence Attitudes Towards their Use in Assistive Care?

Abstract

Advances in technology and science have led to the application of artificial intelligence in many different areas of life. In particular, they have led to the appearance of robots in the domestic sphere. One type of robot – namely, the social robot – has been endowed with a very human aesthetic and is designed to interact with humans, and it is increasingly being used to perform “human tasks”. Social robots have also been introduced into the social services, providing companionship and assistive services for children, the infirm and the elderly. Such usage has rightly attracted the interest of the social sciences, fuelling the debate about the acceptance of social robots by their end-users. In this paper, regression analysis is applied to data from the Eurobarometer survey to investigate how socio-demographic features and self-confidence on technological development influence European citizens’ attitudes towards robots in the social services. The results show that men, with a high level of education, living in a big city and with experience of robot use have more positive attitudes towards the concept of robots for assistive services. This study emphasizes the need to consider the relation between attitudes towards social robots and their use to avoid the generation of social inequalities.