Are robots perceived as good decision makers? A study investigating trust and preference of robotic and human linesman-referees in football

Increasingly, robots are decision makers in manufacturing, finance, medicine, and other areas, but the technology may not be trusted enough for reasons such as gaps between expectation and competency, challenges in explainable AI, users’ exposure level to the technology, etc. To investigate the trust issues between users and robots, the authors employed in this study, the case of robots making decisions in football (or “soccer” as it is known in the US) games as referees. More specifically, we presented a study on how the appearance of a human and three robotic linesmen (as presented in a study by Malle et al.) impacts fans’ trust and preference for them. Our online study with 104 participants finds a positive correlation between “Trust” and “Preference” for humanoid and human linesmen, but not for “AI” and “mechanical” linesmen. Although no significant trust differences were observed for different types of linesmen, participants do prefer human linesman to mechanical and humanoid linesmen. Our qualitative study further validated these quantitative findings by probing possible reasons for people’s preference: when the appearance of a linesman is not humanlike, people focus less on the trust issues but more on other reasons for their linesman preference such as efficiency, stability, and minimal robot design. These findings provide important insights for the design of trustworthy decision-making robots which are increasingly integrated to more and more aspects of our everyday lives.