Equity – Exclusion
The robot is not personalised to the user demographic: preferences, habits, economic background...
Exclusion in human-robot interaction refers to situations where a robot is not adequately adapted to the diversity of its users. Unlike bias, which typically concerns unfair differences between groups or communities, exclusion focuses more narrowly on the individual level: whether a system meaningfully accommodates a person's preferences, habits, socio-economic background, or daily context. In practice, exclusion often emerges not through explicit design failures, but through implicit assumptions about what "normal" users are expected to be like, and how they should behave when interacting with a robot.
Research in HRI illustrates how exclusion appears in everyday interaction contexts. In social companion systems, mismatches between user behaviour and robot expectations can reduce engagement, for example when users' preferred interaction style or timing does not align with the robot's programmed criteria, leading the system to effectively "ignore" the user. In eldercare settings, participants have raised concerns that socially assistive robots risk treating users too homogeneously, overlooking the individuality of older adults and their specific needs. This reinforces the importance of person-centered design, where systems adapt to the user rather than expecting uniform behaviour.
Exclusion also appears in broader social and institutional contexts. In education, stakeholders have noted that access to robots may depend on financial resources, raising concerns that children from lower-income families could be left out if costs are too high or if access is unevenly distributed. Teachers have also pointed out that not all users may be able or willing to work with such systems, highlighting variability in acceptance and usability. In eldercare discussions, participants emphasised concerns about autonomy and the need for robots to complement, rather than override, individual circumstances. Across these cases, exclusion is not only about access to technology, but also about whether the technology can adapt to the diversity of human lives in practice.
These concerns show that exclusion is not only a matter of functionality or customisation, but also of how people are portrayed, assumed, and implicitly categorized by robotic systems in everyday interaction contexts.
Excerpts from the paper:
About the value "Equity"
Equity entails treating people differently based on the circumstances, to ensure an equal outcome. In contrast, equality – treating everyone the same regardless of their situation – did not emerge as a relevant value during the focus groups discussions. Indeed, the experts suggested focusing on equity as a key value. They noted that equity is closely linked to demographics (who) and the environment (where), which can significantly impact a robot's performance. For instance, the geographical location can influence how often a robot overheats and how easily it can be repaired.
About "Exclusion"
This topic extends the previous one on a small scale. While bias refers to a lack of fairness between different communities and cultures, exclusion instead underlines the importance of adapting the robot's behaviours to the individual's preferences, habits, economic background, etc., as emerged during the scoping review. The experts noted that robots will inevitably make certain assumptions based on their programming about what constitutes "normal" behaviour. These assumptions could lead to exclusion and have problematic effects.