Interact at Own Risk! Developing a Prototype of a Robot Hazardous Capability Labeling System

Abstract

We propose to employ hazard labels to communicate a robot’s potentially hazardous capabilities and behaviours to users. Robots can pose a range of ethical and physical safety concerns that users must be aware of when deciding whether to interact. We developed an initial set of key hazards, and a corresponding prototype of a hazard labeling scheme, to demonstrate the potential of this approach. We intend to use this prototype to support exploration of different styles of labeling, and ultimately to develop a more formalized system of robot hazard communication.

Publisher Link

https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/10973978/

Poster

Download the Interact at Own Risk! Developing a Prototype of a Robot Hazardous Capability Labeling System project poster.

Citation

James M. Berzuk and James E. Young. 2025. Interact at Own Risk! Developing a Prototype of a Robot Hazardous Capability Labeling System. In Companion of the 2025 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI'25).

Bibtext Entry

@inproceedings{10973978,
author={Berzuk, James M. and Young, James E.},
booktitle={2025 20th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI)},
title={Interact at Own Risk! Developing a Prototype of a Robot Hazardous Capability Labeling System},
year={2025},
volume={},
number={},
pages={1240-1244},
keywords={Ethics;Prototypes;Human-robot interaction;Hazards;Labeling;Robots;human-robot interaction;human-robot communication;expectation discrepancy;hazard labels;robot safety},
doi={10.1109/HRI61500.2025.10973978}
}