“A Robot's Life is Over When People Give Up”: Socio-Technical Infrastructure for Sustaining Consumer Robots

Sustenance of long-term human-robot relationships relies on a socio-technical infrastructure of care and repair, in which both technical maintenance and social practices work together to sustain robots as relational objects. This infrastructure is, however, often invisible and taken for granted while working well. It is in moments of breakdown and repair that the necessary infrastructure that supports long-term human-robot relationships is exposed. In this paper, we present ethnographic fieldwork and stakeholder interviews with eight users and eight producers and repair staff of successful consumer robots in Japan, that highlight the often-overlooked moments of technological breakdown and the meaning-making that surrounds them. This allows us to shed light on the evolving components of the socio-technical infrastructure-such as technical processes, cultural norms, shared language, emotional labor, and interpersonal relationships-that are essential for sustaining the functionality and relevance of robots in people's everyday lives.