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The
Social Human-Agent Interactions (sHAI)
Group

Our research

Technology is being developed at an incredible pace, yet many questions about our social interaction with technology remain unanswered. We interact with chatbots on an almost daily basis, but why do we sometimes feel like we are talking to an actual human instead of a machine? Robots are used by the army to detonate explosives, but what if we start to feel upset or guilty when they get destroyed? Self-driving cars seem incredibly promising, but can we trust them to make moral decisions? The sHAI group, first established at Radboud University Nijmegen (NL), aims to investigate such interactions in an interdisciplinary manner: we combine insights from computer science, artificial intelligence, robotics, psychology, communication science, and cognitive science. More information on our group members, their projects, and publications can be found below.

News & Events

sHAI in the Media

sHAI Updates

Latest Publications

Virtual Assistants in the Family Home. Understanding Parents’ Motivations to Use Virtual Assistants With Their Child(dren)

By bridging the Technology Acceptance Model, Uses and Gratifications theory, and the first proposition of the Differential Susceptibility to Media Effects Model, this cross-sectional online survey study disentangles (1) different types of families with (2) different motivations for (3) different forms of VA-usage (i.e., parent only, child only, co-use). 

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