Scarecrows in Oz: The Use of Large Language Models in HRI

The proliferation of Large Language Models (LLMs) presents both a critical design challenge and a remarkable opportunity for the field of Human–Robot Interaction (HRI). While the direct deployment of LLMs on interactive robots may be unsuitable for reasons of ethics, safety, and control, LLMs might nevertheless provide a promising baseline technique for many elements of HRI. Specifically, in this article, we argue for the use of LLMs as Scarecrows : “brainless,” straw-man black-box modules integrated into robot architectures for the purpose of quickly enabling full-pipeline solutions, much like the use of “Wizard of Oz” (WoZ) and other human-in-the-loop approaches. We explicitly acknowledge that these Scarecrows, rather than providing a satisfying or scientifically complete solution, incorporate a form of the wisdom of the crowd and, in at least some cases, will ultimately need to be replaced or supplemented by a robust and theoretically motivated solution. We provide examples of how Scarecrows could be used in language-capable robot architectures as useful placeholders and suggest initial reporting guidelines for authors, mirroring existing guidelines for the use and reporting of WoZ techniques.