Social RoboticsLearn about social robotics
Social robotics sits where engineering meets psychology. These pages explain the field from the ground up, for curious readers, students and anyone deciding whether a social robot belongs in their school, clinic or home.
What is social robotics?
A definition, the abilities that make a robot social, the different kinds of social robot, and why humans respond to them at all.
How social robots work
Sensing people, understanding speech, managing conversation, generating faces, gaze and gestures, and what large language models changed.
Where social robots are used
Eldercare and dementia, autism therapy, education, healthcare, retail and reception, the home, and research. What the evidence says about each.
Notable social robots
Twenty robots that shaped the field, and what each one taught us.
The science of human-robot interaction
Anthropomorphism, the uncanny valley, the novelty effect, trust, and the methods researchers use. Plus the conferences, journals and labs.
Ethics and society
Should robots pretend to care? Who owns what they hear? What happens when the company shuts down? And what the law now requires.
Automata and magic
The machines that pretended to be alive, from al-Jazari to Robert-Houdin, and why magic is the oldest ancestor of social robotics.
A history of artificial intelligence
The long story social robotics belongs to, from automata to language models.
Glossary
Plain-language definitions of the field's terms.