Manifestation of virtual assistants and robots into daily life: vision and challenges

Similar to how the smartphone and Internet have significantly changed our daily lives, artificial intelligence (AI) applications have started to profoundly affect our everyday lives as well. Two major products of this relatively recent trend are virtual assistants and home robots. They have similar functional characteristics: both interact with users through conversational agents and attempt to imitate human behavior. Home robots host a virtual assistant and have mechanical capabilities as well. There are many discussions about risks, challenges and the future vision associated with the proliferation of AI at the industrial level. These discussions, however, have not yet widely extended to the user level within the context of daily lives. In this article, we provide a review to discuss the benefits, risks, challenges, open questions and the future vision of using virtual assistants and social robots in daily lives.