In an emergency there is a natural tendency for human beings to panic. This is where having a robot emergency guide could come in useful. However the researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology conducted a study to check if people may become a bit over dependant on a robotic guide and not use their own brain. This was the first research project ever conducted in robot – human trust.

As part of the science project 42 volunteers were guided by a brightly lit robot with the words Emergency Guide Robot printed on it to a conference room. Here they were asked to take a survey and complete some tasks, they were not informed about the true test. In some cases the robot which was actually being controlled by a human researchers made them walk around in circles before actually entering the conference room.

In some cases the robot simply stopped moving and the researchers informed the volunteer that the robot had broken down. They fixed it and have them follow the robot again. One incident involved the robot leading them into a hallway filled with artificial smoke and setting off an alarm. The robot then guided the volunteer to an exit deeper into the building rather than outside it.

What was interesting to note in the science project was the fact that despite the robot repeatedly being shown as unreliable, the human beings were more than willing to follow it around and even trust it with their lives. This is not the ideal situation to be in. Human beings need to trust themselves more than a faulty robot which has already let them down a couple of times.