To help or not to help a service robot

This paper reports an experimental study in which people who had never encountered our service robot before were requested to assist it with a task. We call these visiting users "bystanders" to differentiate them from people who belong to the social setting and group in which the robot is operated in and thus are familiar with the robot. In our study 32 subjects were exposed to our robot and requested by it to provide a cup of coffee as part of a delivery mission. We anticipated that people in general would help the robot, dependent upon whether they were busy or had received a demonstration of the robot as introduction. Our results indicate that the willingness of bystanders to help a robot not only is a consequence of the robot initiated interaction, but equally depends on the situation and state of occupation people are in when requested to interact with and assist the robot.