Your AI robot works. But does it feel like it belongs?

Physical AI is entering our streets, homes, shops and workplaces. Making it work technically is one challenge. Making it belong socially is another.

Introducing artificial agency into real social settings raises questions about who benefits, who decides, who remains responsible and how we live and work together.

Drawing on reported deployment cases, our new paper explores how machines fit into people’s lives, whose interests they serve and how they change the way we live and work.

We introduce PAIR: Purpose, Authority, Integration and Relationship. It synthesises what we learned into a practical framework for designing and deploying Physical AI in a social world.

People and robots move through a modern concrete building with a curved overhang open to the sky: a robot dog walks beside a woman, a humanoid robot carries a bag, and a wheeled delivery robot waits with its lid open.