We’re getting closer to sharing our world with humanoid robots - which raises the question of what human-robot etiquette should look like.

In the spring of 2024, contestants on the BBC travel show Race Against the World left viewers cringing with their queue-jumping antics. If people skipping ahead provokes such horror among Brits, what would happen if robots did the same? This is what a group of European academics investigated in 2024, through a study on robots pushing in when waiting for a lift.  

Recent advances in humanoid robots and AI mean that people and robots are more likely to cross paths in the future. This might make human-robot etiquette more important for situations where a robot has been given an urgent task like delivering medicines. 

The research found that generally, people expected robots to be submissive and wait for the human to enter the lift first. Robots were less accepted when they violated people’s expectations by going first or being assertive. Yet when people anticipated an assertive robot that politely requested priority and went first, interactions between people and machines were more effective. The research highlights how humans may need to adapt as robots and autonomous machines become more common.

The past year has seen big leaps in humanoid robots. In August, MIT Technology Review dubbed the season “humanoid summer,” inspired by Charlie XCX’s hit album Brat. This progress stems partly from smarter AI, which allows robots to learn and adapt to their surroundings, and partly from cheaper hardware. 

Investors are taking note: last year, Figure AI raised $675 million to develop its humanoid robot, Figure 01, capable of learning tasks like making coffee by watching humans. The company aims to build “billions” of robots.

At the moment many existing robots can be found caged in factories - hardly the robot housemaid Rosie from the Jetsons cartoon. But, as human-shaped robots are set to become more common and start to share the same spaces as humans, we are all likely to interact with them more than we do. Daleks can’t climb stairs but C-3P0 can.

As interactions between humans and robots increase, the need for robot etiquette grows. Research on politeness in human-machine interactions has expanded, from just a couple of academic papers in 1996 to around ten annually in recent years.

Whether or not robots queue is just a small part of how robots and humans should interact. Politeness is a powerful way to smooth relations between people across all cultures. So where do robots fit in?

Research shows that polite robots are more accepted, trusted and appreciated. In healthcare and education, people are more likely to comply with a robot’s requests if made in a courteous way.

Whether humans should be polite to robots, however, is less clear. At the moment robots don’t have feelings in the same way as people, so it may seem unnecessary. Some also argue that politeness could blur the line between humans and machines, which could be problematic.

Yet there are subtler reasons to be civil to robots. Children learn manners by observing adults. Rudeness to robots might teach them that courtesy doesn’t matter.

And what happens if a robot is brusque when completing a particularly urgent task for a person? We are all required to give way to emergency service vehicles when their blue lights are flashing so would the same apply to a robot helping with a crisis? What if the robot’s task was merely urgent but not important, like delivering food while it is still hot? 

Humans face a paradox: we treat robots somewhat like people but hold them to different standards, particularly during conflicts. With limited experience of robots, most people rely on preconceived ideas to guide their behaviour. While politeness from robots helps, people often expect robots to be subservient, which can lead to especially negative reactions when robots are assertive. 

To improve their interactions with people, robots may need to work out and adjust to the behaviour humans expect of them. Alternatively, society might even one day grant robots similar social status to people, especially as they take on human-like jobs. 

With robots becoming more present in our everyday environment, 2025 could be the year our relationship with them comes to the fore. Perhaps, in the end, both humans and robots need to go to finishing school.