Tag: Retail

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Robotics in Retail

September 25, 2024 was the first day of the AI & Robotics4Retail Conference 2024 in Bonn. It was part of the “ECR Day 2024”, which took place at the World Conference Center. Numerous practical presentations provide an insight into the most important AI and robotics topics in retail at the moment and provide important ideas for projects in your own company, according to the website. The keynote speech was given by Prof. Dr. Oliver Bendel on the topic of “Service robots from a technical, economic and ethical perspective”. From the description: “Service robots have become widespread as cleaning, transportation, and security robots. As vacuum and mopping robots, they can be found in households, airports and hotels. As transport robots, they move around factories and warehouses, move between the buffet and kitchen in restaurants or bring orders to customers in cities. In the form of social robots, they advise and serve us in shopping malls or entertain our children while we shop. Universal robots, human-like machines that help in production and logistics in the morning, dig up the garden in the afternoon and play tennis with us in the evening, are just around the corner. They are connected to multimodal language models that enable or improve their control and perception. The talk presents use cases of this kind, classifies them from a technical, economic and ethical perspective, and takes a look into the future.” Further information about www.robotics-konferenz.de.

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About Manipulative Robots in Retail

On June 30, 2022, the paper “Should Social Robots in Retail Manipulate Customers?” by Oliver Bendel and Liliana Margarida Dos Santos Alves was published on arxiv.org. It was presented at the AAAI 2022 Spring Symposium “How Fair is Fair? Achieving Wellbeing AI” at Stanford University and came in third place in the Best Presentation Awards. From the abstract: “Against the backdrop of structural changes in the retail trade, social robots have found their way into retail stores and shopping malls in order to attract, welcome, and greet customers; to inform them, advise them, and persuade them to make a purchase. Salespeople often have a broad knowledge of their product and rely on offering competent and honest advice, whether it be on shoes, clothing, or kitchen appliances. However, some frequently use sales tricks to secure purchases. The question arises of how consulting and sales robots should “behave”. Should they behave like human advisors and salespeople, i.e., occasionally manipulate customers? Or should they be more honest and reliable than us? This article tries to answer these questions. After explaining the basics, it evaluates a study in this context and gives recommendations for companies that want to use consulting and sales robots. Ultimately, fair, honest, and trustworthy robots in retail are a win-win situation for all concerned.” The paper will additionally be published in the proceedings volume of the symposium by the end of summer. It can be downloaded via arxiv.org/abs/2206.14571.

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The Hologram Girl Grew Up

Japanese company Gatebox has taken its holographic assistant to a new level in 2021 with the unveiling of Gatebox Grande. This is reported by HYPEBEAST. The hologram, which is now the size of an adult, is displayed on a 65-inch screen and can be used for applications such as a digital concierge or as an advisor and salesperson in a shopping mall. This makes the intelligent assistant a competitor to social robots like Pepper, Cruzr, and Paul. Inside the device “lives” a female anime character named Azuma Hikari, who can be “summoned” by voice or proximity activation. According to HYPEBEAST, she has a range of gestures, facial expressions, and voice tones to enable the most realistic interaction with the user. Life-size holograms will play a big role in the future. However, further research and development work is still needed.

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When Robots Flatter the Customer

Under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Oliver Bendel, Liliana Margarida Dos Santos Alves wrote her master thesis “Manipulation by humanoid consulting and sales hardware robots from an ethical perspective” at the School of Business FHNW. The background was that social robots and service robots like Pepper and Paul have been doing their job in retail for years. In principle, they can use the same sales techniques – including those of a manipulative nature – as salespeople. The young scientist submitted her comprehensive study in June 2021. According to the abstract, the main research question (RQ) is “to determine whether it is ethical to intentionally program humanoid consulting and sales hardware robots with manipulation techniques to influence the customer’s purchase decision in retail stores” (Alves 2021). To answer this central question, five sub-questions (SQ) were defined and answered based on an extensive literature review and a survey conducted with potential customers of all ages: “SQ1: How can humanoid consulting and selling robots manipulate customers in the retail store? SQ2: Have ethical guidelines and policies, to which developers and users must adhere, been established already to prevent the manipulation of customers’ purchasing decisions by humanoid robots in the retail sector? SQ3: Have ethical guidelines and policies already been established regarding who must perform the final inspection of the humanoid robot before it is put into operation? SQ4: How do potential retail customers react, think and feel when being confronted with a manipulative humanoid consultant and sales robot in a retail store? SQ5: Do potential customers accept a manipulative and humanoid consultant and sales robot in the retail store?” (Alves 2021) To be able to answer the main research question (RQ), the sub-questions SQ1 – SQ5 were worked through step by step. In the end, the author comes to the conclusion “that it is neither ethical for software developers to program robots with manipulative content nor is it ethical for companies to actively use these kinds of robots in retail stores to systematically and extensively manipulate customers’ negatively in order to obtain an advantage”. “Business is about reciprocity, and it is not acceptable to systematically deceive, exploit and manipulate customers to attain any kind of benefit.” (Alves 2021) The book “Soziale Roboter” – which will be published in September or October 2021 – contains an article on social robots in retail by Prof. Dr. Oliver Bendel. In it, he also mentions the very interesting study.