From Human-Robot Relationship to Robot-Based Leadership

Hooman Aghaebrahimi Samani and Adrian David Cheok

Abstract— The role of robots can be changed from laborto leader. In this paper few key issues for robot-basedleadership is explained. Specifically this paper highlightsthe importance of robot-based leadership and providesbase for emotion-laden leadership by robots, robotleadership advantages and modes of robot leadership.The role of emotion in leadership is extended to roboticapplications and possibility of improving robot-basedleadership by focusing on emotional attachment ispresented. Emotion-laden leadership by robots addressesthe core of leadership and that is emotions and feelingsamong leader and followers. These emotions are thebackbone of the influence exerted by leader on followers.Therefore, introduction, exploration and development ofLovotics is important for robot-based leadership to beeffective.Various reasons which support the idea of using robotsfor leadership are explored. These key issues areembodiment, multitasking ability, anthropomorphism,programmability, programmability, deduction, reasoningand problem solving, decision making and planning,learning, imitation, collaboration, adaptability, modularity,believability, repeatability, interactivity and Connectivity.Several modes of robot leadership are explained. Roleof humans and robots in robot-based leadership isexplored. Admin, crew and factor based configurationsare investigated and both centralized and decentralizedmethods are presented.

I. Introduction

Recent technological achievements like computers,internet and mobile phones play an important role inmanagement nowadays. Such facilities can be embod-ied in the form of robots to be employed for robot-based leadership. Robots can be a new generation ofcomputers with physical existence to handle variousmanagement and leadership tasks.There are several advantages for robots over computerswhich bestow them the capability for better leadership.In this paper the main advantages of robots for lead-ership is explained. Another key issue is that robotsare capable of developing emotional attachments withhumans. Such ability is another focused of this paper.Several application are practically imaginable for thenext generation of robots. For example robot-basedleadership could be useful for health care sector toachieve consistently high precision. Not only robots canbe employed as a servant or assistance but also they

Authors are with Graduate School for Integrative Sciences andEngineering, Keio-NUS CUTE Center, Mixed Reality Lab, Interactiveand Digital Media Institute, Department of Electrical and Com-puter Engineering, National University of Singapore. {hooman andelecad}@nus.edu.sg

Fig. 1. The role of robots can be changed from labor to leader

can lead an operation in health care. As an examplea surgery can be performed by a robot while differenthuman surgeons cooperating with the robot for eachspecific task during the surgery. Robots are capableor multitasking and such ability can be employed toallow the robot to interact with different humans inreal time. Such robot-based leadership application insurgery is one of the many examples of using robotsfor leadership.The organization of this paper is as following: Emotion-laden Leadership by robots in presented in Chapter 2,advantages of robot leadership is described in Chapter3 and modes of robot-based leadership is presented inChapter 4. Finally the paper is concluded in Chapter 5.

II. Emotion-laden leadership by robots

Leadership can be described as a specificallyemotion-laden process, with emotions entwined withthe social influence process [1]. The leader’s moodin an organization effects the group in 3 levels: Themood of individual group members, the affective toneof the group and group processes like coordination,effort expenditure, and task strategy [2]. The capabilityof understanding and managing moods and emotionsin the self and others which is known as emotionalintelligence contributes to effective leadership in orga-nizations [3].Considering the importance of emotion in leadership,it should be also applied in robot leadership. Generallyemotional attachment can improve the relationship be-tween humans and robots. Lovotics is field of research

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which strives to achieve a high level of attachmentbetween humans and robots [4], [5]. Robots can be inan active participant in the human-robot interactionand build up emotional attachments with humans.Also robots are capable of detecting emotional states ofthe humans during interaction mainly through visualand audio interactive channels. Hence bidirectionalemotional attachment between humans and robots isachievable. Emotional intelligence of the robots can beemployed in improving the emotional values of theleadership aspects.

III. Benefits and advantages of robot-based

leadership

There are several reasons that robots can be engagedfor leadership. Some of them are very similar to capa-bilities of computers and some are advantages of robotsover computers. In general robots can be known asnew version of computers with physical presentation.In this chapter several advantages of robots are listedto support the idea of employing robots for leadership.

A. Embodiment

Robots can act as concrete manifestation of comput-ers as have the capability to interact with the environ-ment through a physical body within the surroundings.Embodiment is a key advantage of a robotic leadercompare to a computer.

B. Multitasking ability

One of the key challenges in leadership is dealingwith various tasks in the same times. Simultaneousoperation of several actions by a robot is feasible andthis ability is one of the key advantages of a roboticleader compare to a human.

C. Anthropomorphism

Anthropomorphism is the attribution of human char-acteristics to animals or non-living things, phenomena,material states and objects or abstract concepts. Sincerobots have physical embodiment, anthropomorphismcan be applied to them and proper design of the robotwould increase this parameter for better acceptance inleadership.Anthropomorphism can be applied to robotsas well which needs to be considered in the design ofthe robot with specific role of leadership.

D. Programmability

Programmability is one of the basic capabilities of therobots. Such capability can be adapted from computersto certain applications and requirements for robots.

E. Deduction, reasoning and problem solving

Human beings solve most of their problems usingfast, intuitive judgments rather than the conscious,step-by-step deduction that early AI research was ableto model [6]. Robots can employ artificial intelligenceto deal with uncertain or incomplete information, em-ploying concepts from probability and economics [7].There are several attempts in artificial intelligence re-search to imitate this kind of sub-symbolic problemsolving. By employing several artificial intelligencetools robots can be equipped to perform different taskswhich require deduction, reasoning and problem solv-ing.

F. Decision making and planning

Robots are capable of planning using artificial intel-ligence by visualizing the future by having a represen-tation of the state of the world and being able to makepredictions about how their actions will change it. Forplanning robots should be able to make choices thatmaximize the utility and value of the available choices[8]. Planning skill of the robots can be employed fortheir leadership to plan future requirements logically.

G. Learning

Machine learning has been central to artificial intel-ligence research from the beginning [9]. Supervised,unsupervised and reinforcement are three main meth-ods of machine learning [10]. Learning capability ofrobot makes it possible to learn several methods ofmanagement to improve their leadership skill.

H. Imitation

In addition to two common methods of teachingrobots, which are explicitly telling them via program-ming and letting the robot to figuring out itself via com-mon leaning algorithms, imitation is another methodto let robot learn via observing human behaviors [11].Robots can imitate leaders behaviors to perform someleadership tasks.

I. Collaboration

Robots are capable of collaborating with humansand also with other robots. Robots may cooperate formulti-agent planning to achieve a given goal. Emer-gent behavior such as this is used by evolutionaryalgorithms and swarm intelligence [8]. Robots maycollaborate together and also with humans to performdifferent tasks of leadership. As a leadership a teamof robots and human leaders can work together to useadvantages of each group to optimize the performancein a management tasks.

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J. Adaptability

Robots can be built according to the certain usageand their form and functionality can be customized ac-cording to a specific environment. Furthermore robotscan be employed in some environments for manage-ment and leadership where the it is impossible ordifficult for humans to attend.

K. Modularity

Beyond conventional actuation, sensing and con-trol typically found in fixed-morphology robots, self-reconfiguring robots are also able to deliberatelychange their own shape by rearranging the connectivityof their parts, in order to adapt to new circumstances,perform new tasks, or recover from damage. As a com-mon type modular reconfigurable robots-experimentalsystems made by interconnecting multiple, simple, sim-ilar units-can perform shape shifting.[12]Leader robots may be designed in a modular configura-tion to perform accordingly base on the requirements.

L. Believability

Plausibility is one of another advantages of robotscompare to computers and mobiles phone. Base of theusage robots can be designed with believable behav-iors and expressions. In this way robots will be moreacceptable by humans.

M. Repeatability

Robots are capable of repeating as task many timesand such quality can be used for repeatable leadershiptasks.

N. Interactivity

Interaction is one of the essential elements of manyleadership task and robots are capable of that. Re-searchers from different disciplines are trying to im-prove human - robot interaction modalities.

O. Connectivity

Robots can be easily connected to a network andemploy that network facilities. The robot can be con-nected to the internet and exploit world wide webinstantaneously, use GPS data for localization, etc.

IV. Modes of robot-based leadership

Collaboration between robots in a leadership teamcan be performed in various formations according tothe temperament of the environment and system re-quirements. These leadership modes can be surveyedfrom several outlooks. Some key issues in modes ofrobot-based leaderships are as follows:

A. Human - robot role

A robot-based management system can be consist ofrobots and humans. As a members of the team, eachhuman or robot may have different degree of influenceon the team performance. It might be controlled merelyby a human or only a robot or both of them. Role ofhumans and robots can be different in each application.Following categories can be considered for this modebased on the role of each human and robot:

1) Robot as a leader: A robot can be the main leaderof the robot-based leadership system. In this case therobot leads the entire system and acts beyond theleadership members.

2) Robot as a support for leadership: Current human-based leadership teams use tools and technologies likecomputers and internet to expedite their leadership.Robots can be next generation of such facilitators. Inthis case robot supports the leadership task as a tool.

3) Robots as intermediate leaders: In an specific casefor the previous category, robots can act as mediatorbetween humans to facilitate a leadership task. Manyof current successful technologies are those which actbetween humans as a link to connect them togetherwith offering novel practical application. Internet-basedsocial networks are good example of recent usefultechnologies which are employed by humans for betterperformance. In the same way, robotic systems can beintergraded within a leadership team to open new gatesin leadership methodologies.

B. Admin, crew and factor based configurations

Leadership tasks can be performed via a team ofrobots or even team of robots and humans together. Inthis case robots collaborate together in order to performa task and humans may be also engaged in suchaction. Hence tasks should be allocated to membersin appropriate way for optimum performance. Severalconfigurations of the robotic can be be arranged forsuch performance.Admin, Crew and Factor based are three commonmethods of task allocation in robots [13]. These modescan be extended to robot leadership. Considering ateam of robots and humans as members of an orga-nization following three methods can be applied toleadership:

1) Admin-based: In a reliable and robust situationthat the central robot can manage other members ofthe team including robots and humans admin-basedmethod can be applied for team configuration. In thiscase one robot plays the role of administrator for teamperformance and manages other team members.

2) Crew-based: In crew-based configuration, the mainleader is not involved directly due to the structure ofthe system or requirements of platform but differentmembers of the organization may communicate safely,then the team members including humans and robots

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may communicate to decide for different modules ofleadership.

3) Factor-based: Factor-based configuration appliesto a team of robots and humans when each of themembers can handle each task individually. One of thepossible application of this case is in lack of reliablecommunication between one member with not only thethe central leader, but also between the members. Soeach of members should be able to manage their tasks.

C. Centralized and decentralizedAn organization can be equipped with a centralized

leadership system consist of humans and robots. Insuch system the central management unit manages allthe organization. On the other hand, such team canbe managed via a decentralized robot-based leadershipsystem.

V. Conclusion

The paper provided insights into field of robotics andapplication of robots in the realm of leadership mayhave promising future. We focused on three aspectsof robot-based leadership in this paper. Firstly wepointed the role of emotion in robot-based relationship,secondly we explained several advantages of usingrobots for leadership and thirdly we considered severalpossible modes of robot-based leadership. Above threekey issues support the possibilities and opportunitiesof robot-based leadership.

VI. Acknowledgments

This research is carried out under CUTE Project No.WBS R-705-000-100-279 partially funded by a grantfrom the National Research Foundation (NRF) admin-istered by the Media Development Authority (MDA)of Singapore.

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