What To Expect When You’re Expecting Robots: The Future of Human-Robot Collaboration

Robots today range from disembodied voices like Alexa to vacuum cleaners such as the Roomba to vehicle navigation systems. Though smart, they lack empathy and require human supervision. Robot designers Major and Shah discuss these types of robots and their effect on society, but they also introduce the concept of what a future of social robots might entail and how robot-human relationships could evolve. This book is filled with real-life examples and creative projections of how robots behave. From robot failures causing plane and car crashes to situations in which robots truly make human life easier in settings like hospitals, Major and Shah detail the intricacies of how robots work and what happens when they do not. The work is engaging and aimed at the layperson who works with the everyday “robot,” and each chapter has a clever title that keeps readers turning pages.