Designing Artificial Agents: Appearance and Expressivity

Abstract

The design of robotic artifacts, their appearance, and expressivity, are all but trivial. The appearance and expressivity of robots generate social meaning and semantics through a combination of shapes, forms, colors and textures. In robotic artifacts, the tasks, interaction modalities, and expressive qualities are inseparable. There is a constant interplay between surface appearance. and behavior, and movement. How a robot looks and behaves is a communication device, a transmitter of a message which people decode through the perception of animacy and agency. Such complex, dynamic, and multi-modal communication influences how a robot is perceived functionally and socially. In this chapter, we discuss the semantic and semiotics of robot’s appearance and expressivity and how it influences robotic imaginaries and technical development. Then, we provide a collection of eight methods and perspectives illuminating how we can design robots’ appearance and expressivity, accounting for their uniquely situated and dynamic nature.