Editing Social robot (section)

==Background==
{{Unreferenced section|date=June 2022}}
While robots have often been described as possessing social qualities (see for example the tortoises developed by [[William Grey Walter]] in the 1950s<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Walter |first=W. Grey |date=1950 |title=An Imitation Of Life |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/24967456 |journal=Scientific American |volume=182 |issue=5 |pages=42–45 |issn=0036-8733}}</ref>), social robotics is a fairly recent branch of robotics. Since the 1990s, [[artificial intelligence]] and [[robotics]] researchers have developed robots which explicitly engage on a social level.

The evolution of social robots began with autonomous robots designed to have little to no interaction with humans. Essentially, they were designed to take on what humans could not. Technologically advanced robots were sent out to handle hazardous conditions and the assignments that could potentially put humans in danger, like exploring the deep oceans or the surface of Mars.<ref>Weir, K. (2018, January 1). The dawn of social robots. ''Monitor on Psychology'', ''49''(1). https://www.apa.org/monitor/2018/01/cover-social-robots</ref> Advancing these original intentions, robots are continually being developed to be inserted into human-related settings to establish their social aspect and access their influence on human interactions. Over time, social robots have been advanced to begin to have their own role in society.

Designing an [[Autonomy|autonomous]] social robot is particularly challenging, as the robot needs to correctly interpret people's action and respond appropriately, which is currently not yet possible. Moreover, people interacting with a social robot may hold very high expectancies of its capabilities, based on [[Robots in science fiction|science fiction]] representations of advanced social robots. As such, many social robots are partially or fully [[remote controlled]] to simulate advanced capabilities. This method of (often covertly) controlling a social robot is referred to as a [[Mechanical Turk]] or [[Wizard of Oz (character)|Wizard of Oz]], after the character in the [[L. Frank Baum]] book. Wizard of Oz studies are useful in social robotics research to evaluate how people respond to social robots.