Should robots swear when they make mistakes? Oregon State finds it matters little

Naomi Fitter of Oregon State University described studies in which a robot reacted to failures such as dropping an object with silence, a plain remark or an expletive. Students found the swearing robot the most socially close and funny, while the general public found expletives the most uncomfortable and plain remarks the most likeable; an in-person replication handing out goodie bags supported the results. The clearest finding was that people cared most about the robot acknowledging its mistake at all. The work adds evidence on how social robots should handle failure, a constant in real-world deployments.

Source: IEEE Spectrum