Choreographing Trash Cans: On Speculative Futures of Weak Robots in Public Spaces

TL;DR

Problem: The paper investigates how 'weak robots' in public spaces can shift interaction from task-oriented efficiency to care-driven, co-authored urban sociability. Approach: it uses disability studies and queer theory as method, with design-fiction vignettes anchored by Value Sensitive Design to surface embedded values, decisions, and outcomes. Findings: dystopian and utopian choreographies reveal how form, data practices, and affective interfaces influence user agency, privacy, and trust, illustrating performativity and intra-action in public robotics. Impact: provides a critical design framework for making explicit the ethical and sociotechnical implications of weakness and cuteness in public-space robots, guiding more inclusive futures.

Abstract

Delivering groceries or cleaning airports, mobile robots exist in public spaces. While these examples showcase robots that execute tasks, this paper explores mobile robots that encourage posthuman collaboration rather than managing environments independently. With feigned fragility, cuteness and incomplete functionalities, the so-called "weak robots" invite passersby to engage not only on a utilitarian level, but also through imaginative and emotional responses. After examining the workings of "weak robots" by queering notions of function and ability, we introduce two speculative design fiction vignettes that describe choreographies of such robots in future urban spaces -- one exploring a utopian weak robot and the other a dystopian weak robot. We introduce these speculations in order to discuss how different values may drive design decisions, and how such decisions may shape and drive different socio-technical futures in which robots and humans share public spaces that incentivise collaboration.