# Botson: An Accessible and Low-Cost Platform for Social Robotics Research

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.19491 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.19491/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 9 of its 25 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 23 Feb 2026.

## Builds on (most cited first, 9 of 9)

- [Formalizing Trust in Artificial Intelligence: Prerequisites, Causes and Goals of Human Trust in AI](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.07487/) (2020)
- [MotionGPT: Finetuned LLMs Are General-Purpose Motion Generators](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.10900/) (2023)
- [Understanding Large-Language Model (LLM)-powered Human-Robot Interaction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.03217/) (2024)
- [Trust in AI: Progress, Challenges, and Future Directions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.14680/) (2024)
- [ToddlerBot: Open-Source ML-Compatible Humanoid Platform for Loco-Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.00893/) (2025)
- [Brevity is the soul of sustainability: Characterizing LLM response lengths](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.08686/) (2025)
- [LLM Gesticulator: Leveraging Large Language Models for Scalable and Controllable Co-Speech Gesture Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.10851/) (2024)
- [ChatAnything: Facetime Chat with LLM-Enhanced Personas](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.06772/) (2023)
- [The Influence of Facial Features on the Perceived Trustworthiness of a Social Robot](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.13948/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Trust remains a critical barrier to the effective integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) into human-centric domains. Disembodied agents, such as voice assistants, often fail to establish trust due to their inability to convey non-verbal social cues. This paper introduces the architecture of Botson: an anthropomorphic social robot powered by a large language model (LLM). Botson was created as a low-cost and accessible platform for social robotics research.