Mutual Support

In accessibility and human-robot interaction research, a framing that moves beyond one-way robot-supports-user or user-supervises-robot models toward a bidirectional relationship in which each party compensates for the other's limitations. For a blind user travelling with an autonomous navigation robot, mutual support means the robot provides environmental information and collision-free path planning while the user contributes social judgement, speaks on behalf of the pair in delicate situations, and decides when to seek help from bystanders. Mutual support extends Bennett, Brady and Branham's interdependence framework from human-human assistance to human-AI assistance and is proposed as an antidote to the 'omakase paradox' in which greater robot autonomy unintentionally reduces user agency.