Australians comfortable with robots: study

Australians appear even more comfortable with lifelike humanoid robots than the supposedly robot-friendly Japanese.

The surprising result from a recent study should smooth the adoption of android helpers in Australia, according to researchers from the Creative Robotics Lab at the University of NSW.

In identical experiments in Japan and Australia, researchers put more than 50 volunteers in a room with Geminoid-F, an extremely lifelike android resembling a young Japanese woman.

They were asked to speak with the robot, ask questions, touch its hand and move a chair closer.

To the researchers' surprise, the Australian participants appeared more comfortable than their Japanese counterparts.

They asked the robot more questions and focused on its feelings - for example, whether it dreams and what it thought about being a robot.

"Generally, everyone in robotics thinks the Japanese like robots, and Western cultures don't like robots," the study's Dr David Silvera-Tawil said.

"These results show it's not necessarily the case.

"We also like robots and we're open to interact with them. We trust them."

The results, to be presented at a robotics conference in Sydney on Wednesday, suggest that films such as The Terminator, with its killer robots, haven't creeped people out too much.

That's important, Dr Silvera-Tawil said, because the number of robots is increasing.

He said we'll see more as in-home helpers for the elderly, in therapy for kids with autism and anxiety disorders, and as service robots to do dirty and distasteful tasks.

Yet it remains to be seen if people will become uneasier as robots get more lifelike, Dr Silvera-Tawil said.

The Geminoid-F looks human but is still recognisably a robot, with yellowish skin and silicon hands.

People may react differently when they can't tell whether the person sitting opposite them is human or robot.