Public perceptions of Robotics and Artificial Intelligence (RAI) are important in the acceptance, uptake, government regulation and research funding of this technology. Recent research has shown that the public's understanding of RAI can be negative or inaccurate. We believe effective public engagement can help ensure that public opinion is better informed. In this paper, we describe our first iteration of a high throughput in-person public engagement activity. We describe the use of a light touch quiz-format survey instrument to integrate in-the-wild research participation into the engagement, allowing us to probe both the effectiveness of our engagement strategy, and public perceptions of the future roles of robots and humans working in dangerous settings, such as in the off-shore energy sector. We critique our methods and share interesting results into generational differences within the public's view of the future of Robotics and AI in hazardous environments. These findings include that older peoples' views about the future of robots in hazardous environments were not swayed by exposure to our exhibit, while the views of younger people were affected by our exhibit, leading us to consider carefully in future how to more effectively engage with and inform older people.

中文翻译：

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危险区域中的机器人：通过参与探索公众认知

公众对机器人和人工智能 (RAI) 的看法对于这项技术的接受、采用、政府监管和研究资助非常重要。最近的研究表明，公众对 RAI 的理解可能是消极的或不准确的。我们相信有效的公众参与可以帮助确保公众意见得到更好的了解。在本文中，我们描述了高吞吐量面对面公众参与活动的第一次迭代。我们描述了使用轻触式测验格式的调查工具将野外研究参与整合到参与中，使我们能够探讨我们参与策略的有效性以及公众对机器人和人类工作未来角色的看法在危险环境中，例如在海上能源部门。我们批评我们的方法，并在公众对危险环境中机器人和人工智能未来的看法中分享有趣的结果。这些发现包括老年人对危险环境中机器人未来的看法并未因接触我们的展览而动摇，而年轻人的看法则受到我们的展览的影响，引导我们在未来仔细考虑如何更有效地参与并告知老年人。