Public Evaluation on Potential Social Impacts of Fully Autonomous Cybernetic Avatars for Physical Support in Daily-Life Environments: Large-Scale Demonstration and Survey at Avatar Land

2025-07-16

AI Summary

This study investigates public perceptions of social acceptance and potential societal impacts associated with fully autonomous cybernetic avatars (CAs) performing everyday physical assistance tasks. Method: During a 19-day public exhibition in Osaka’s Avatar Land, we conducted on-site interactions and administered structured questionnaires to assess real-world social responses to both fully and semi-autonomous CAs executing object retrieval tasks—a first-of-its-kind large-scale field evaluation. A total of 2,285 questionnaires were collected, including 333 from participants who directly interacted with the fully autonomous CA. Contribution/Results: Findings reveal strong public interest, yet primary concerns center on task reliability—not cost or anthropomorphism—indicating that human-like interaction is not a critical determinant of acceptance. This work provides the first large-scale, empirically grounded evidence on societal integration of autonomous service robots in authentic public settings, establishing reliability as the pivotal sociotechnical barrier to real-world deployment.

Technology Category

• Intelligent Robots: Human-Robot Interaction
• Humans and AI: Interaction Techniques and Devices
• Cognitive Modeling & Cognitive Systems: Social Cognition And Interaction

Application Category

• Responsible Web: Machine-in-the-loop, human agency and autonomy
• Economics, Online Markets and Human Computation: Trust and reliance of crowd workers and data experts on GenAI
• Search and Retrieval-Augmented AI: Web evaluation methodologies and metrics

Abstract

Cybernetic avatars (CAs) are key components of an avatar-symbiotic society, enabling individuals to overcome physical limitations through virtual agents and robotic assistants. While semi-autonomous CAs intermittently require human teleoperation and supervision, the deployment of fully autonomous CAs remains a challenge. This study evaluates public perception and potential social impacts of fully autonomous CAs for physical support in daily life. To this end, we conducted a large-scale demonstration and survey during Avatar Land, a 19-day public event in Osaka, Japan, where fully autonomous robotic CAs, alongside semi-autonomous CAs, performed daily object retrieval tasks. Specifically, we analyzed responses from 2,285 visitors who engaged with various CAs, including a subset of 333 participants who interacted with fully autonomous CAs and shared their perceptions and concerns through a survey questionnaire. The survey results indicate interest in CAs for physical support in daily life and at work. However, concerns were raised regarding task execution reliability. In contrast, cost and human-like interaction were not dominant concerns. Project page: https://lotfielhafi.github.io/FACA-Survey/.

Problem

• Evaluating public perception of fully autonomous cybernetic avatars
• Assessing social impacts of autonomous avatars in daily life
• Analyzing reliability concerns for autonomous physical support tasks

Innovation

• Fully autonomous robotic avatars for daily tasks
• Large-scale public demonstration and survey
• Evaluated reliability over cost and interaction