Touching Robots In Private Parts Makes People Uncomfortable

This is a NAO robot asking a human to touch its hand for science. Robots can't feel shame, which saves them from any awkwardness when they ask a human to touch their buttocks. Humans are not so lucky, and when asked by a robot to touch part of its body, humans will get uncomfortable if that body part is generally thought of as private. In a new study, Stanford researchers found that people get weirded out touching "low-accessible" parts of the robot's body (crotch, butt, that sort of thing). The paper will be presented this week in Fukuoka, Japan, at the Annual Conference of the International Communication Association.