Embodiment and Appearance
Robot Bodies and Human Responses
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 24233193 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Pablo Jiménez Schlegl (0000-0003-3627-4938) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Pages | 117-146 |
| Publication date | 2026-01-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | CHAPTER |
| Venue | Law, Governance and Technology Series (SOURCE_BOOK) |
| Publisher | Springer Nature Switzerland (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1007/978-3-032-13063-1_7 |
| OpenAlex | W7151869665 |
| ISBN | 9783032130631 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 19 |
Embodiment means AI inhabiting a physical body and thus having a given appearance. The appearance of robots is far from being neutral, but conditions the way humans perceive them and their capabilities. In particular, human-like appearance may elicit feelings of emotional state, consciousness and autonomy attribution, and induce empathy for the artificial being. Functionality has been up to now the guiding criterion for industrial, field, or medical robots. Now, as robots begin to spread in the services and domestic domains, with a higher degree of human–robot interaction (HRI) with non-professional users, other concepts such as trustworthiness arise. Several studies have been devoted to human acceptance and engagement based on the robot appearance and behavior. As soon as such robots become a consumer product, them being functional and trustworthy will not suffice: they also will need to be cute, beautiful, stylish, or adhere to the aesthetic standards of given collectives. Debates and fashions will unfold confronting machine-likeness and life (or human)-likeness, and regulations will have to be developed, concerning appearance issues related to deception, (particular) human replicas and image rights.
aesthetic principles · Anthropomorphism · Deception · Embodiment · home robots · human-likeness · human-robot interaction · image rights · robot appearance · robotics regulation · service robots · Trustworthiness · AI in Service Interactions · Ethics and Social Impacts of AI · Social Robot Interaction and HRI
Measurement of negative attitudes toward robots
Judging a Socially Assistive Robot by Its Cover
Semiotic Analysis of Robot Sounds in Films
Gendered Human–Robot Interactions in Services
What is Appropriate? On the Assessment of Human-Robot Proxemics for Casual Encounters in Closed Environments
Measurement Instruments for the Anthropomorphism, Animacy, Likeability, Perceived Intelligence, and Perceived Safety of Robots
| Highly cited | No |
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