C-25

Home / Research  / Publications / C-25

Robot-Human Agreements and Financial Transactions Enabled by a Blockchain and Smart Contracts

Irvin Steve Cardenas Advanced Telerobotics Research Laboratory Kent State University Kent, Ohio, USA irvin@irvincardenas.com
Jong-Hoon Kim Advanced Telerobotics Research Laboratory Kent State University Kent, Ohio, USA jkim72@kent.edu

 

ABSTRACT This paper explores the design of a robot and interaction model that enables a robot to engage in human-like financial transactions, and to enter into agreements with a human counterpart. More explicitly, (1) we bestow the agent with a cryptocurrency wallet and (2) define bilateral and multilateral agreements that can be automated as smart contracts in a distributed ledger. As a use case of a robot with such features, we describe roBU – a traveling robot, that can enter into financial agreements in exchange for assistance in traveling the world. With this effort, we expect to validate the idea of near-future scenarios where autonomous or semi-autonomous agents are endowed with, a type of, social autonomy and the ability to engage in financial transactions. We believe the latter can improve task completion and enable further exploration of robot-human relationships and dependencies. All this, with the end goal of establishing mutual trust.