AI and Human-Robot Interaction in Healthcare: A Narrative Review

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) is multidisciplinary field that explores the dynamic interaction between human with human-like across social, cognitive, ethical, and technical dimensions. This review synthesises benefits and challenges faced in AI-HRI in the field of healthcare, categorising the literature into various thematic areas like social interaction and emotional engagement in children, mitigating social isolation in elderly, ethical considerations, reducing burden on healthcare workers, rehabilitative robots, surgical robots and eventually increasing the efficiency of workflow in hospitals. Foundational works establish the significance of autonomy, collaboration, and multimodality. At the same time, recent studies emphasised the significance of empathy, user acceptance, and the subtle impact the robots can have in social and domestic settings. Ethical analysis highlights both potential risks and benefits of AI-HRI, particularly in special group of population like specially-abled children, elderly, etc. Application-based research further highlights the importance of robots in service-related to healthcare, and hospitality environments. Affective computing helps create systems that understand emotions, making interactions with technology feel more natural and human-like. Together, these insights chart a comprehensive landscape of HRI, informing the benefits and risks of socially and ethically responsible robotic agents.