Dear robot, I have diarrhea: Why we trust machines with embarrassing problems
Robot’s don’t judge our hemorrhoids
Robots don’t judge
Taking humans out of a situation has been used to reduce embarrassment in the past. For example, consumers can purchase products such as condoms and tampons from vending machines, avoiding awkward interactions in stores. A recent survey discovered that consumers are willing to pay more for personal hygiene productsonline, just to avoid the embarrassment of buying in a store.
Robots might not gossip about us but they do collect more data than a human ever could – and they store it for longer. In the research, participants did raise concerns about privacy and robots storing their data, but many felt they already handed over a lot of personal information every day via their phones and therefore didn’t worry about it too much.
The use of service robots is rising today and sales of robot technologies are projected to reachUS$912 millionby 2026. The pandemic has also accelerated the deployment of these technologies, and with them a significant loss of jobs around the world. Only in the last year, the number of robots adopted in hospital receptions, hotels, airports, and restaurantsincreased considerably.
Although many of us worry aboutlosing our jobsto robots, and millions of jobs are being automated, in cases like this it turns out we may prefer to have robots do certain parts of the role of sales assistants. But that’s not to say we would like all parts of the job to be performed by a machine, many people would undoubtedly miss the one-to-one contact and warmth that a human pharmacist can offer if they popped in for advice.
This article byValentina Pitardi, Lecturer in Marketing,University of Surreyis republished fromThe Conversationunder a Creative Commons license. Read theoriginal article.
Story byThe Conversation
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