Pluralistic Human-Robot Interaction: Designing for Robot Interaction with Diverse Communities
2026-08-17 • Human-Computer Interaction
Human-Computer InteractionComputers and SocietyRobotics
AI summaryⓘ
The authors explain that social robots will meet many different types of people in homes, schools, and other places. They argue that simply making robots good at chatting and completing tasks isn't enough. Instead, their idea of Pluralistic HRI focuses on designing robots to understand and respect human diversity by using skills like empathy, cultural awareness, and moral thinking. This approach aims to help robots interact fairly and thoughtfully with people from diverse backgrounds.
Human-Robot InteractionPluralismEmpathyIntercultural CompetenceCultural HumilityMoral ImaginationCivic DialogueSocial RobotsAdaptive Interaction
Authors
Raj Korpan
Abstract
Social robots are being developed for homes, schools, and other environments where they will interact with diverse users. While Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) research often emphasizes natural communication, engagement, personalization, and task success, these goals do not fully address the social complexity of real-world deployment. This paper proposes \emph{Pluralistic HRI}, a framework for designing social robots that treat human diversity as a foundational design concern. The framework brings together pluralism, civic dialogue, perspective-taking, empathy, intercultural competence, cultural humility, and moral imagination to guide inclusive, adaptive, and ethically grounded interaction. We outline how pluralistic HRI can inform design, evaluation, and deployment in diverse human communities.