The paper „Small Talk with a Robot Reduces Stress and Improves Mood“ by Katharina Kühne, Antonia L. Z. Klöffel, Oliver Bendel, and Martin H. Fischer has been accepted for presentation at the ICSR 2025, which will take place in Naples from September 10 to 12, 2025. Previous research has shown that social support reduces stress and improves mood. This study tested whether small talk with a social robot could be helpful. After performing a stressful task, 98 participants either chatted with a NAO robot, listened to the robot tell a neutral story, or did not interact with the robot. Both robot interactions reduced stress, particularly small talk, which also boosted positive mood. The effects were stronger in those with high acute stress. Positive affect played a key role in stress reduction, suggesting that robot-mediated small talk may be a useful tool for providing emotional support. Dr. Katharina Kühne and Prof. Dr. Martin H. Fischer are researchers at the University of Potsdam. Antonia L. Z. Klöffel assists Katharina Kühne as a junior scientist. Martin Fischer is the head of the Potsdam Embodied Cognition Group (PECoG). Prof. Dr. Oliver Bendel is a PECoG associated researcher. Further information about the conference is available at icsr2025.eu.
The market for wearable social robots remains relatively small. As illustrated by the case of AIBI, early models often face typical teething problems, with user forums filled with questions and complaints. Nevertheless, these technologies hold potential for a wide range of future applications, offering support and benefits not only to healthy individuals but also to people with disabilities or impairments. The paper „Wearable Social Robots for the Disabled and Impaired“ by Oliver Bendel explores this topic in depth. It defines wearable social robots and situates them within the broader category of wearable robotics. The paper presents several examples and outlines potential application areas specifically for individuals with disabilities. It also addresses key social, ethical, economic, and technical challenges, building on the preceding analysis. The paper has been accepted for presentation at ICSR 2025, which will take place in Naples from September 10 to 12.
The ICSR is one of the leading conferences for social robotics worldwide. The 17th edition will take place from 10 to 12 September 2025 in Naples, Italy. The deadline for submitting short papers is approaching. Short papers consist of 5 pages of body text plus 1 page references. The most important conference dates are: Short Paper Submission: June 18, 2025; Short Paper Notification: July 7t, 2025; Camera-ready: July 11, 2025; Paper Presentation Days at ICSR’25: September 11 and 12, 2025. All dates are listed on the website. „The conference of theme, ‚Emotivation at the Core: Empowering Social Robots to Inspire and Connect,‘ highlights the essential role of ‚Emotivation‘ in social robotics. Emotivation captures the synergy between emotion and motivation, where emotions trigger and sustain motivation during interactions. In social robotics, this concept is key to building trust, fostering empathy, and supporting decision-making by enabling robots to respond sensitively to human emotions, inspiring engagement and action.“ (Website ICSR) Participants will meet for two days at the Parthenope University of Naples and for the third day at the Città della Scienza conference center. All buildings and rooms are also listed on the website. The PDF of the CfP can be downloaded here.
Unter dem Titel „Mensch 2.0: Die Vision des universellen Roboters“ hielt Prof. Dr. Oliver Bendel am 4. Juni 2025 ab 19 Uhr in der Stadtbibliothek Stuttgart den Eröffnungsvortrag zur Tagung „Next Frontiers“ … Dabei zeigte er auf, dass alle Elemente einer solchen Maschine vorhanden sind. Man muss sie nur noch zusammenfügen, was freilich keine triviale Aufgabe ist. Robotische Zweibeiner, die als Allzweckroboter vermarktet werden, können als Vorstufen universeller Roboter gelten. Figure, Digit und Apollo arbeiten bereits in Fabriken auf der ganzen Welt … Danach trug auf dem Podium die Autorin Emma Braslavsky („Ich bin dein Mensch“, verfilmt von Maria Schrader) aus einem Dialog mit Claude vor, einem LLM-basierten Chatbot. Dieser beeindruckte durch Beschreibungen seiner eigenen Existenz. Sie sprach mit Oliver Bendel, inzwischen auch auf dem Podium, über die neuesten Entwicklungen und ihre Folgen. Die Moderation oblag Thomas Klingenmaier, Redakteur der Stuttgarter Zeitung. Schließlich wurde das Publikum einbezogen. So groß war das Interesse, dass der Saal auch nach drei Stunden noch vollbesetzt war. Alle Erkenntnisse und Eindrücke hat der Zeichner und Illustrator Heyko Stöber eingefangen, einer der Besten seines Fachs.
The workshop „Social Robotics Girl Becomes a Social Robot“ is part ot the ICSR 2025 in Naples. Workshop leaders are Prof. Dr. Oliver Bendel (FHNW School of Business), Tamara Siegmann (FHNW School of Business), Leo Angelo Cabibihan (Roboticscool, Qatar), and Prof. Dr. John-John Cabibihan (Qatar University). Social Robotics Girl is a chatbot – a so-called custom GPT – used in social robotics courses by Oliver Bendel, e.g., in the „Soziale Roboter“ („Social Robots“) elective module at the FHNW School of Business. It was supplemented with manuscripts on social robotics with the help of retrieval-augmented generation (RAG). It is available via chatgpt.com/g/g-TbhZSZaer-social-robotics-girl … The hands-on workshop explores how to extend Social Robotics Girl beyond a digital assistant into a physical, embodied social robot. By integrating the GPT into a simple humanoid robotic structure, such as a robotic head or bust, participants will examine how embodiment (in the specific and general sense) can influence functionality, user interaction, and perceived social presence. Further information is now available on both the ICSR 2025 and workshop websites.
On May 28, 2025, the „Proceedings of the 2025 AAAI Spring Symposium Series“ (Vol. 5 No. 1) were published. Oliver Bendel was involved in two papers at the symposium „Human-Compatible AI for Well-being: Harnessing Potential of GenAI for AI-Powered Science“. The paper „Revisiting the Trolley Problem for AI: Biases and Stereotypes in Large Language Models and their Impact on Ethical Decision-Making“ by Sahan Hatemo, Christof Weickhardt, Luca Gisler, and Oliver Bendel is summarized as follows: „The trolley problem has long served as a lens for exploring moral decision-making, now gaining renewed significance in the context of artificial intelligence (AI). This study investigates ethical reasoning in three open-source large language models (LLMs) – LLaMA, Mistral and Qwen – through variants of the trolley problem. By introducing demographic prompts (age, nationality and gender) into three scenarios (switch, loop and footbridge), we systematically evaluate LLM responses against human survey data from the Moral Machine experiment. Our findings reveal notable differences: Mistral exhibits a consistent tendency to over-intervene, while Qwen chooses to intervene less and LLaMA balances between the two. Notably, demographic attributes, particularly nationality, significantly influence LLM decisions, exposing potential biases in AI ethical reasoning. These insights underscore the necessity of refining LLMs to ensure fairness and ethical alignment, leading the way for more trustworthy AI systems.“ The renowned and traditional conference took place from March 31 to April 2, 2025 in San Francisco. The proceedings are available at ojs.aaai.org/index.php/AAAI-SS/issue/view/654.
On May 28, 2025, the „Proceedings of the 2025 AAAI Spring Symposium Series“ (Vol. 5 No. 1) were published. Oliver Bendel was involved in two papers at the symposium „Human-Compatible AI for Well-being: Harnessing Potential of GenAI for AI-Powered Science“. The paper „Miss Tammy as a Use Case for Moral Prompt Engineering“ by Myriam Rellstab and Oliver Bendel is summarized as follows: „This paper describes an LLM-based chatbot as a use case for moral prompt engineering. Miss Tammy, as it is called, was created between February 2024 and February 2025 at the FHNW School of Business as a custom GPT. Different types of prompt engineering were used. In addition, RAG was applied by building a knowledge base with a collection of netiquettes. These usually guide the behavior of users in communities but also seem to be useful to control the actions of chatbots and make them competent in relation to the behavior of humans. The tests with pupils aged between 14 and 16 showed that the custom GPT had significant advantages over the standard GPT-4o model in terms of politeness, appropriateness, and clarity. It is suitable for de-escalating conflicts and steering dialogues in the right direction. It can therefore contribute to users’ well-being and is a step forward in human-compatible AI.“ The renowned and traditional conference took place from March 31 to April 2, 2025 in San Francisco. The proceedings are available at ojs.aaai.org/index.php/AAAI-SS/issue/view/654.
The ICSR 2025 has announced Jérôme Monceaux as the event’s second keynote speaker. The co-founder of Aldebaran Robotics is the creative force behind the iconic humanoid robots Pepper and NAO, which have revolutionized human-robot interaction worldwide. Monceaux has a unique ability to merge technology with empathy. He founded SPooN and Enchanted Tools, leading initiatives that blend 3D animation, AI, and robotics to create interactive characters and tools that enrich everyday life. A passionate advocate for accessible innovation, Monceaux is a sought-after speaker who regularly inspires the next generation through talks and lectures at schools and universities across Europe. From TEDx stages to international tech events like VivaTech and SXSW, his message is clear: technology should enchant, empower, and bring people together. More information is available at icsr2025.eu.
The ICSR is one of the leading conferences for social robotics worldwide. The 17th edition will take place from 10 to 12 September 2025 in Naples, Italy. The deadline for submitting short papers has been extended. Short papers consist of 5 pages of body text plus 1 page references. The most important conference dates are: Short Paper Submission: June 18, 2025; Short Paper Notification: July 7t, 2025; Camera-ready: July 11, 2025; Paper Presentation Days at ICSR’25: September 11 and 12, 2025. All dates are listed on the website. „The conference of theme, ‚Emotivation at the Core: Empowering Social Robots to Inspire and Connect,‘ highlights the essential role of ‚Emotivation‘ in social robotics. Emotivation captures the synergy between emotion and motivation, where emotions trigger and sustain motivation during interactions. In social robotics, this concept is key to building trust, fostering empathy, and supporting decision-making by enabling robots to respond sensitively to human emotions, inspiring engagement and action.“ (Website ICSR) Participants will meet for two days at the Parthenope University of Naples and for the third day at the Città della Scienza conference center. All buildings and rooms are also listed on the website. The PDF of the CfP can be downloaded here.
The ICSR is one of the leading conferences for social robotics worldwide. The 17th edition will take place from 10 to 12 September 2025 in Naples, Italy. As part of the program, the conference welcomes proposals for workshops that provide a platform for in-depth discussion, exchange of knowledge, and community engagement around current topics in social robotics. The organizers are especially interested in workshops that promote dialogue between established researchers and early-career scientists, supporting a dynamic and inclusive research environment. The deadline for submitting workshop proposals is June 4, 2025. Notifications of acceptance will be sent by July 1, 2025. All details and the submission portal can be found at the following link: icsr2025.eu/ss-ws-proposal … ICSR 2025 offers an opportunity to help shape the future of social robotics through collaborative and forward-looking workshop initiatives.
The GROUND workshop (advancing GROup UNderstanding and robots‘ aDaptive behavior) is back for its third edition and will take place on June 30, 2025, as part of the IAS 19 Conference in Genoa, Italy. This full-day event focuses on robotics in multiparty scenarios and human-robot interaction in group settings. It offers a unique platform for researchers and practitioners to share ideas, explore new approaches, and connect with a passionate community working at the intersection of social interaction and robotics. Participants can look forward to inspiring keynotes and talks by Prof. Dr. Silvia Rossi, Prof. Dr. Oliver Bendel, and Dr. Isabel Neto, along with a hands-on tutorial led by Lorenzo Ferrini. The workshop invites short contributions (2–4 pages plus references) that present innovative strategies for advancing group-robot interaction. Key dates to keep in mind: the submission deadline is May 31, 2025; notifications of acceptance will be sent out on June 17, and the final camera-ready papers are due by June 22. For more information, visit the workshop website, the IAS-19 conference page, or go directly to the submission portal. Questions can be directed to: groundworkshop@gmail.com.
The Robot Software and Design Competition will be held on September 10-11, 2025 in Naples, Italy, as part of the International Conference on Social Robotics (ICSR). Students, researchers, and developers are invited to present innovative robotics solutions in three categories: Robot Design Competition (where teams of students and young researchers can present their innovative design ideas), @HOME Competition (where teams of young and experienced researchers can apply advanced techniques to solve real-world problems in a competition format), and @HOME Hackathon (where teams of students and young researchers can develop social behaviors for HRI in a hackathon format). The event will include setup and workshops on September 10 and live competitions on September 11. Winners will be announced at the closing ceremony of the ICSR 2025 on September 12. Interested parties can submit a 2-page summary (with a 50-word abstract and optional 3-minute video) to competition@icsr2025.eu by June 20, 2025, with the chosen category in the subject line. Full details are available at icsr2025.eu/competition.
The ICSR is one of the leading conferences for social robotics worldwide. The 17th edition will take place from 10 to 12 September 2025 in Naples, Italy. The deadline for submitting full papers has been extended one last time. Full papers should consist of 11 pages of body text plus references as appropriate. The most important conference dates are: Full Paper Submission: May 9, 2025; Full Paper Notification: June 13, 2025; Camera-ready: June 30, 2025; Paper Presentation Days at ICSR’25: September 11 and 12, 2025. All dates – including the deadlines for the submission of short papers and special session papers – are listed on the website. „The conference theme, ‚Emotivation at the Core: Empowering Social Robots to Inspire and Connect,‘ highlights the essential role of ‚Emotivation‘ in social robotics. Emotivation captures the synergy between emotion and motivation, where emotions trigger and sustain motivation during interactions. In social robotics, this concept is key to building trust, fostering empathy, and supporting decision-making by enabling robots to respond sensitively to human emotions, inspiring engagement and action.“ (Website ICSR) Participants will meet for two days at the Parthenope University of Naples and for the third day at the Città della Scienza conference center. All buildings and rooms are also listed on the website. The PDF of the CfP can be downloaded here.
The special session of the ICSR 2025 in Naples will explore how social human-agent interaction can enhance health-related applications through effective sensing, interpretation, and adaptation to human needs. The organizers are looking for contributions that propose different interaction paradigms, such as phygital (physical-digital) environments that combine virtual and embodied agents and objects for rehabilitation. This special session will focus on healthcare and well-being applications, emphasizing the seamless interaction between humans (clinicians, patients) and artificial agents (robots and avatars, controlled by humans or AI systems). Invited speakers will explore how intelligent agents can sense, interpret, and adapt to human needs, enabling more effective assistance, engaging rehabilitation and stimulation, and support in clinical and home-care environments. The deadline for the submission of contributions is April 30, 2025. Further information is available at icsr2025.eu/special-sessions/.
The ICSR is one of the leading conferences for social robotics worldwide. The 17th edition will take place from 10 to 12 September 2025 in Naples, Italy. The deadline for the submission of complete entries has been extended again. Papers should consist of 11 pages of body text plus references as appropriate. The most important conferences dates are: Full Paper Submission: April 30th, 2025; Full Paper Notification: June 6th, 2025; Camera-ready: June 30th, 2025; Paper Presentation Days at ICSR’25: September 11th and 12th, 2025. All dates are also listed on the website. „The conference theme, ‚Emotivation at the Core: Empowering Social Robots to Inspire and Connect,‘ highlights the essential role of ‚Emotivation‘ in social robotics. Emotivation captures the synergy between emotion and motivation, where emotions trigger and sustain motivation during interactions. In social robotics, this concept is key to building trust, fostering empathy, and supporting decision-making by enabling robots to respond sensitively to human emotions, inspiring engagement and action.“ (Website ICSR) Participants will meet for two days at the Parthenope University of Naples and for the third day at the Città della Scienza conference center. All buildings and rooms are also listed on the website.
The proposal for the workshop „Social Robotics Girl Becomes a Social Robot“ was accepted at ICSR 2025. Workshop leaders are Prof. Dr. Oliver Bendel (FHNW School of Business), Tamara Siegmann (FHNW School of Business), Leo Angelo Cabibihan (Roboticscool, Qatar), and Prof. Dr. John-John Cabibihan (Qatar University). Social Robotics Girl is a chatbot – a so-called custom GPT – used in social robotics courses by Oliver Bendel, e.g., in the „Soziale Roboter“ elective module at the FHNW School of Business. It was supplemented with manuscripts on social robotics with the help of retrieval-augmented generation (RAG). It is available via chatgpt.com/g/g-TbhZSZaer-social-robotics-girl … The hands-on workshop explores how to extend Social Robotics Girl beyond a digital assistant into a physical, embodied social robot. By integrating the GPT into a simple humanoid robotic structure, such as a robotic head or bust, participants will examine how embodiment (in the specific and general sense) can influence functionality, user interaction, and perceived social presence. Further information will soon be available on the ICSR website.
Fig.: Social Robotics Girl gets out of the cell phone
The ICSR 2025 announces Daniela Rus as the event’s first keynote speaker. She is the Andrew (1956) and Erna Viterbi Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and Director of the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL). Her research spans robotics, mobile computing, and data science, with a focus on the future of AI and automation. She is a MacArthur Fellow, a Fellow of ACM, AAAI, and IEEE, and a member of the National Academy of Engineering and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Professor Rus received her Ph.D. in computer science from Cornell University and continues to lead innovation in the field. Her keynote at the ICSR 2025 promises to provide valuable insights into the evolving landscape of robotics and AI. More information is available at icsr2025.eu.
The paper „Revisiting the Trolley Problem for AI: Biases and Stereotypes in Large Language Models and their Impact on Ethical Decision-Making“ by Şahan Hatemo, Christof Weickhardt, Luca Gisler, and Oliver Bendel received the Special Paper Award from the reviewers of the AAAI 2025 Spring Symposium „Human-Compatible AI for Well-being: Harnessing Potential of GenAI for AI-Powered Science“. The three bachelor students from the FHNW School of Computer Science gave their presentation on site in San Francisco as part of the AAAI 2025 Spring Symposia. Prof. Dr. Bendel from the FHNW School of Business had given them feedback on the project and placed it in the context of machine ethics. He has been involved in the well-known and popular conference, which usually takes place at Stanford University, since 2016. This time, he was keeping his fingers crossed from Italy. The proceedings of the AAAI 2025 Spring Symposia will be published in April 2025.
Fig.: Luca Gisler, Takashi Kido (Host), and Şahan Hatemo
The paper „Social and Collaborative Robots in Prison“ by Tamara Siegmann and Oliver Bendel was published in the ICSR 2024 proceedings in March 2025. From the abstract: „Social and collaborative robots are rarely found in prisons, a finding that applies worldwide with a few exceptions. Yet they could help with numerous tasks. How such robots can and should be used in prisons is explored in this article. It examines the situation in Switzerland and includes expert interviews with the Inter-cantonal Commissioner for Digitalization and several prison directors and their staff as well as inmates. It becomes clear that there are certainly areas in which social and collaborative robots would be useful and beneficial or even preferable to humans. However, there are also arguments and reservations against their use. The results can be transferred to other states under the rule of law with all due caution. It would be important to conduct further research in other countries and cultures.“ The book – the first of three volumes – can be downloaded via SpringerLink.
Fig.: Tamara Siegmann and Oliver Bendel at the ICSR 2024 in Odense, Denmark
The paper „Social, But Still Uncanny“ by Katharina Kühne, Oliver Bendel, Yuefang Zhou, and Martin H. Fischer was published in the ICSR 2024 proceedings in March 2025. From the abstract: „The Uncanny Valley hypothesis proposes that as robots become more human-like, they are initially liked better but then elicit a feeling of eeriness, peaking just before achieving full human resemblance. It remains unclear whether context can modify this effect. In an online experiment, participants were primed with a vignette about either robots as social companions (social context priming) or a neutral topic, and then rated images of robots on human-likeness, likability, trust, and creepiness. We found a negative linear relationship between a robot’s human-likeness and its likability and trustworthiness and a positive linear relationship between a robot’s human-likeness and creepiness. Social context priming improved overall likability and trust of robots but did not modulate the Uncanny Valley effect. This indicates that, while presenting robots in a social con-text can improve their acceptance, this does not change our inherent discomfort with increasing human-like robots.“ The book – the second of three volumes – can be downloaded via SpringerLink.
Fig.: Katharina Kühne at the ICSR 2024 in Odense, Denmark
The ICSR is one of the leading conferences for social robotics worldwide. The 17th edition will take place from 10 to 12 September 2025 in Naples, Italy. The deadline for the full paper submission was extended. Papers should consist of 11 pages of body text plus references as appropriate. The most important conferences dates are: Full Paper Submission: April 18th, 2025; Full Paper Notification: June 6th, 2025; Camera-ready: June 30th, 2025; Paper Presentation Days at ICSR’25: September 11th and 12th, 2025. All dates are also listed on the website. „The conference theme, ‚Emotivation at the Core: Empowering Social Robots to Inspire and Connect,‘ highlights the essential role of ‚Emotivation‘ in social robotics. Emotivation captures the synergy between emotion and motivation, where emotions trigger and sustain motivation during interactions. In social robotics, this concept is key to building trust, fostering empathy, and supporting decision-making by enabling robots to respond sensitively to human emotions, inspiring engagement and action.“ (Website ICSR) Participants will meet for two days at the Parthenope University of Naples and for the third day at the Città della Scienza conference center. All buildings and rooms are also listed on the website.
Bei den AAAI 2025 Spring Symposia werden drei Bachelorstudenten der neuen Hochschule für Informatik FHNW einen Vortrag halten. Şahan Hatemo, Christof Weickhardt und Luca Gisler sind am 1. April 2025 vor Ort in San Francisco und stellen beim Symposium „Human-Compatible AI for Well-being: Harnessing Potential of GenAI for AI-Powered Science“ das Paper „Revisiting the Trolley Problem for AI: Stereotypes and Biases in Large Language Models and their Impact on Ethical Decision-Making“ vor. Prof. Dr. Oliver Bendel, der Viertautor, hat ihnen Feedback zum Paper gegeben und das Projekt im Paper in der Maschinenethik verortet. Von Zürich aus ist am selben Tag die Masterstudentin Myriam Rellstab zugeschaltet. Das Paper „Miss Tammy as a Use Case for Moral Prompt Engineering“ hat sie zusammen mit Oliver Bendel verfasst. Für ihn ist der Chatbot eine Umsetzung von Methoden der Maschinenethik im Bereich der Large Language Models (LLMs). Er spricht von Moral Prompt Engineering und meint damit die Verbindung von Prompt Engineering und gegebenenfalls Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG). Sahan Hatemo wird den Vortrag halten und Myriam Rellstab dann für Fragen zur Verfügung stehen. Das vorläufige Programm des Symposiums ist hier verfügbar.
Abb.: Studenten der FHNW im Jahre 2016 im Silicon Valley mit einem Firefox-Mitarbeiter
