SEBA 2021

Companies looking to replace human staff with robots at hotels, restaurants and other service industries, should consider giving them a female face, study finds.

For the study, 170 volunteers were asked by experts from University in Pullman, Washington, for their thoughts on a scenario involving a hypothetical robot working in a service job – such as as a hotel greeter.

The team discovered that people are more comfortable talking to a female presenting robot, especially if it has human-like features. 

The researchers said that in future, as well as a female face, it could be important for robots to have some degree of personality, especially if working in service jobs. 

Researcher Soobin Seo said people have a tendency to feel more comfort if they are being cared for by females because of gender stereotyping in service roles. 

‘That gender stereotype appears to transfer to robot interactions, and it is more amplified when the robots are more human like.’

The coronavirus pandemic has sparked a rise in service industry firms bringing robots on board, including as waiters and greeters – to fill a rising number of vacancies.

However, even before the pandemic, Sportsbook malta the hotel industry struggled with high turnover of employees, leading to high numbers of vacancies.

Professor Seo said some hotels turned to robots for a range of functions, including dishwashing and room cleaning – but also customer service. 

Examples range from the female humanized robots named ‘Pepper’ at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Las Vegas to the fully automated FlyZoo hotel chain in China where guests interact only with robots and artificial intelligence (AI) features. 

In the UK a Chinese buffet chain purchased four ‘BellaBots’ at about $20,000 each to fill gaps in staffing caused by the coronavirus pandemic, and recent studies have shown the average price of a bot is less than a full-time employee’s salary.