Most people prefer friendly robots — but not in France and Japan

As robots increasingly replace human jobs, thanks to record spending on automation, how should they behave? That preference depends on where you live.

LivePerson, a company that works in automated customer service, recently surveyed 5,000 people on what personality types they prefer in a customer service bot.

The majority, 62 percent, said they want bots to be friendly, 21 percent would prefer a formal bot and 9 percent said they’d like their bot to be humorous. Only 4 percent said they prefer a curt robot.

But that preference varies by country and culture.

The vast majority of Americans surveyed — 78 percent — preferred friendly robots, with just 13 percent preferring a formal robot personality. Friendly robot types also won handily in Australia, the U.K. and Germany.

But in France, an equal percentage of survey respondents — 37 percent — preferred friendly and formal bots. (France was also where the largest percentage of respondents — 8 percent — preferred a “hip” robot personality.)

And in Japan, where robots have long been part of popular culture — and are increasingly being discussed for eldercare purposes — respondents had a different take. The most — 51 percent — wanted a formal robot, while just 20 percent preferred a friendly robot.

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

Will you join us?

Our biggest supporters are our readers — and we’re so grateful to everyone who has made a contribution during our September campaign. We’re less than 1,000 contributions away from reaching our goal for the month, which in turn will allow us to say yes more often when our incredible journalists come to us with questions they want to answer and projects they want to pursue. Will you make a contribution before the month ends and support our policy coverage through 2024 and beyond?

One-Time Monthly Annual

$5/month

$10/month

$25/month

$50/month

Other

$

Yes, I'll give $5/month

Yes, I'll give $5/month

We accept credit card, Apple Pay, and Google Pay. You can also contribute via