Robots That Run their Own Human Experiments: Exploring Relational Humor with Multi-Robot Comedy

This paper proposes a street-style study method to conduct human-robot interaction studies in-the-wild where the robots conduct their own experiments by recruiting their audience, conducting the study and gathering data. This street-style study method was implemented using multi-robot comedy as the platform deployed at an arts and technology festival to validate the concept. Twelve robot comedy shows occurred over seven hours with two robots on stage, who queried the audience during and at the end of each show. The multi-robot aspect enabled the robots to act out interactions relative each other, oneself and the audience. The final street-style study method evolved from pilots at a local farmer’s market, with hardware designed for portability and easy replication. The robots conducted their own human experiments in that they queried the audience after displaying experimentally balanced episodes of relational humor, with permutations of who was the ‘butt of the joke.’ Our study results explore the relational humor of the two robots and the audience, asking the audience to agree or disagree with particular perspectives. Delivered as part of the show, the robots invite the audience to vote via a show of hands. ANOVA analyses of the percent-agreement results find that (1) audiences were generally positive about all aspects of the show unless both robots were being negative, and (2) audiences were more ready to protect the robot comedian’s ego than their own, strongly supporting the statement that the robot was doing a good job.New Abstract