Chan2026
| Chan2026 | |
|---|---|
| BibType | ARTICLE |
| Key | Chan2026 |
| Author(s) | Jeffrey Kok Hui Chan, Zhuoqun Jiang, Yixiao Wang |
| Title | ‘Sweating the small stuff’: investigating robot ethics in ordinary but complex interactions of the Ubi Problem |
| Editor(s) | |
| Tag(s) | EMCA, Robot ethics, Human-robot interaction (HRI), AI Reference List, Trolley problem, Ordinary interaction, City |
| Publisher | |
| Year | 2026 |
| Language | English |
| City | |
| Month | |
| Journal | AI & Society |
| Volume | 41 |
| Number | 4 |
| Pages | 3801–3812 |
| URL | Link |
| DOI | 10.1007/s00146-025-02846-1 |
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Abstract
Ordinary yet morally ambiguous and complex human-robot interactions (HRI) are anticipated to become more commonplace as sophisticated robots begin appearing in everyday life. Unlike the extreme, unfamiliar and high stakes ‘life-or-death’ binary choices seen in the Trolley Problem thought experiments of the self-driving car, ordinary interactions are instead quotidian and familiar. Yet these interactions can be interpreted very differently by different users and there are many possible better or worse responses. Responses by the robot can also steer the interaction in an irreversible and undesirable direction. In a theoretical context that primarily focuses on issues of safety and privacy in artificial intelligence, the ethics of ordinary interactions remains under-explored in HRI. In this article, ‘The Ubi Problem’ study poses twenty-six commonplace scenarios that a reading companion robot, ‘Ubi’ and its client, a young child that it is reading to, would likely encounter in the open environment of a public library. After viewing the visual storyboards of these scenarios and through a participatory focus group discussion, expectations of what Ubi should do were drawn out and examined collectively. Findings from this study suggest that these ordinary interactions pose a number of under-explored ethical challenges in HRI. However, the most salient aspects of these challenges can be visualized, examined, and anticipated using the research strategy of ‘The Ubi Problem’. In turn, this suggests that robot designers and communities employing advanced social robots can rely on the approach of ‘The Ubi Problem’ to improve their foresight and to avoid costly pitfalls.
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