Robots or dogs to guide blind people?

The photograph summarises in a single image a nascent debate between those in favour of using dogs to guide blind people, a traditional and widely proven solution, albeit with certain limitations, and those in favour of robots specialised in doing the same job, a cutting-edge solution that promises to offer users many more benefits than dogs can offer, although the reliability of these guide robots still needs to be demonstrated.

A somewhat conciliatory study in this regard has been carried out by a team led by Hochul Hwang of the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, USA. In this study, Hwang and his colleagues advocate robots but on the condition that their development involves close collaboration with guide dog users and the trainers of such dogs.

The study in question is titled “To Optimize Guide-Dog Robots, First Listen to the Visually Impaired.” It was presented at the 2024 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2024), where it won an award. (Source: NCYT by Amazings)

Guide dog next to a guide robot. (Photo: Zinj Guo)