Diversity-aware social robots meet people: beyond context-aware embodied AI

Abstract: The article introduces the concept of "diversity-aware" robotics and discusses the need to develop computational models to embed robots with diversity-awareness: that is, robots capable of adapting and re-configuring their behavior to recognize, respect, and value the uniqueness of the person they interact with to promote inclusion regardless of their age, race, gender, cognitive or physical capabilities, etc. Finally, the article discusses possible technical solutions based on Ontologies and Bayesian Networks, starting from previous experience with culturally competent robots.