“Maybe it knows more than us” - Exploration of social robots as climate communicators to foster climate hope in adolescents

Abstract

Climate change represents an existential threat that places young people at an increased risk of mental distress. However, climate anxiety, mental distress about climate change, can also coexist with positive emotions such as climate hope. This qualitative study explores the potential of social robots to act as climate communicators, based on their previously demonstrated potential as engaging mediums. Three written scenarios that utilize different climate communication strategies (empathy, information, action) were presented and evaluated with 42 groups of ninth graders (n=115, 42 group responses) through an online questionnaire. The results show that all scenarios elicited positive but also negative reactions. The reactions were the most mixed regarding the empathy scenario. Our findings suggest that a robot could attract young people’s interest and should be designed to communicate objectively about climate issues and inform about concrete ways to act. Engaging interaction with such a robot implies the support of artificial intelligence in communication, even though the factual information should be drawn from reliable and objective sources rather than be generated with AI. The sustainability implications of the concept require careful consideration.