Staging, Accommodating or Caring: Reviewing the Human Labor Involved in Shaping Robots into Agents

This review examines the hidden and invisible labor humans perform to enable robots to function as agents within Human-Robot Interaction (HRI). While robot agency is often framed as internal and autonomous, this perspective overlooks the relational dynamics that sustain robot functionality in real-world settings. Drawing on feminist theory, the review highlights how humans frequently share the responsibility of managing robot limitations through scaffolding, mediation, and care work, often unnoticed or undervalued. The review compares various studies that investigate this labor, focusing on the roles of human agents and their contributions in ensuring robots succeed in tasks. It identifies gaps in the current literature, including a limited focus on domestic environments and the lack of frameworks to conceptualize and make visible the often unrecognized labor in HRI. The findings call for more attention to the invisible labor integral to robot agency and suggest future research directions that incorporate both qualitative and quantitative methods to better understand and value this critical work.