Creative AI for HRI Design Explorations

Design fixation, a phenomenon describing designers' adherence to pre-existing ideas or concepts that constrain design outcomes, is particularly prevalent in human-robot interaction (HRI), for example, due to collectively held and stabilised imaginations of what a robot should look like or behave. In this paper, we explore the contribution of creative AI tools to overcome design fixation and enhance creative processes in HRI design. In a four weeks long design exploration, we used generative text-to-image models to ideate and visualise robotic artefacts and robot sociotechnical imaginaries. We exchanged results along with reflections through a digital postcard format. We demonstrate the usefulness of our approach to imagining novel robot concepts, surfacing existing assumptions and robot stereotypes, and situating robotic artefacts in context. We discuss the contribution to designerly HRI practices and conclude with lessons learnt for using creative AI tools as an emerging design practice in HRI research and beyond.