The robots that share our public areas in the present day are so demure. Social robots and repair robots purpose to keep away from offense, erring towards well mannered airs, constructive feelings, and obedience. In some methods, this is sensible—would you actually need to have a yelling match with a supply robotic in a lodge? Most likely not, even when you’re in New York Metropolis and attempting to soak up the native tradition.
In different methods, this passive social robotic design aligns with paternalistic requirements that hyperlink help to subservience. Thoughtlessly following such outdated social norms in robotic design could also be ill-advised, because it might help to bolster outdated or dangerous concepts resembling proscribing individuals’s rights and reflecting solely the wants of majority-identity customers.
In my robotics lab at Oregon State Collegewe work with a playful spirit and luxuriate in difficult the problematic norms which might be entrenched inside “well mannered” interactions and social roles. So we determined to experiment with robots that use foul language round people. In spite of everything, many individuals are utilizing foul language greater than ever in 2025. Why not let robots have an opportunity, too?
Why and Research Cursing Robots
Societal requirements in the USA counsel that cursing robots would probably rub individuals the fallacious means in most contexts, as swearing has a predominantly unfavorable connotation. Though some previous analysis exhibits that cursing can improve crew cohesion and elicit humorsure members of society (resembling girls) are sometimes anticipated to keep away from risking offense by profanity. We questioned whether or not cursing robots can be seen negatively, or if they could maybe provide advantages in sure conditions.
We determined to check cursing robots within the context of responding to errors. Previous work in human-robot interplay has already proven that responding to error (moderately than ignoring it) might help robots be perceived extra positively in human-populated areas, particularly within the case of non-public and repair robots. And one examine discovered that in comparison with different fake pas, foul language is extra forgivable in a robotic.
With this previous work in thoughts, we generated movies with three widespread forms of robotic failure: bumping right into a desk, dropping an object, and failing to know an object. We crossed these conditions with three forms of responses from the robotic: no verbal response, a non-expletive verbal declaration, and an expletive verbal declaration. We then requested individuals to charge the robots on issues like competence, discomfort, and likability, utilizing commonplace scales in a web-based survey.
What Individuals Considered Our Cursing Robots
On the entire, we had been shocked by how acceptable swearing appeared to the examine contributors, particularly inside an preliminary group of Oregon State College college students, however even among the many common public as effectively. Cursing had no unfavorable affect, and even some constructive impacts, among the many faculty college students after we eliminated one religiously connotated curse (god***it), which appeared to be obtained in a stronger unfavorable means than different cuss phrases.
The truth is, college contributors rated swearing robots because the most socially shut and most humorous, and rated non-expletive and expletive robotic reactions equal on social heat, competence, discomfort, anthropomorphism, and likability scales. Most of the people judged non-profane and profane robots as equal on most scales, though expletive reactions had been deemed most discomforting and non-expletive responses appeared most likable. We consider that the college college students had been barely extra accepting of cursing robots due to the campus’s progressive tradition, the place cursing is taken into account a peccadillo.
Since experiments run solely in a web-based setting don’t at all times signify real-life interactions effectively, we additionally performed a closing replication examine in particular person with a robotic that made errors whereas distributing goodie baggage to campus group members at Oregon State, which bolstered our prior outcomes.
We’ve got submitted this work, which represents a well-designed collection of empirical experiments with attention-grabbing outcomes and replications alongside the way in which, to a number of completely different journals and conferences. Regardless of persistently enthusiastic reviewer feedback, no editors have but accepted our work for publication—it appears to be the kind of paper that editors are nervous to the touch. At present, the work is beneath assessment for a fourth time, for doable inclusion within the 2025 IEEE Worldwide Convention on Robotic and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN), in a paper titled “Oh F**okay! How Do Individuals Really feel About Robots That Leverage Profanity?”
Give Cursing Robots a Likelihood
Primarily based on our outcomes, we predict cursing robots deserve an opportunity! Our findings present that swearing robots would sometimes have little draw back and a few upside, particularly in open-minded areas resembling college campuses. Even for most of the people, reactions to errors with profanity yielded a lot much less distaste than we anticipated. Our knowledge confirmed that folks cared extra about whether or not robots acknowledged their error in any respect than whether or not or not they swore.
Individuals do have some reservations about cursing robots, particularly in the case of consolation and likability, so thoughtfulness could also be required to use curse phrases on the proper time. For instance, simply as people do, robots ought to probably maintain again their swear phrases round kids and be extra cautious in settings that sometimes demand cleaner language. Robotic practitioners may additionally think about surveying particular person customers about profanity acceptance as they arrange new know-how in private settings—moderately than letting robotic programs study the exhausting means, maybe alienating customers within the course of.
As extra robots enter our day-to-day areas, they’re certain to make errors. How they react to those errors is vital. Essentially, our work exhibits that folks want robots that discover when a mistake has occurred and react to this error in a relatable means. And it appears that evidently a variety of kinds within the response itself, from the profane to the mundane, can work effectively. So we invite designers to offer cursing robots an opportunity!
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