Ambiguous Failures in Robotic Musicianship: The Impact of Embodied Liveness and Musical Context

Abstract

Robots that perform in open-ended creative settings must deviate from expectations to be interesting, yet the same deviations can be interpreted as malfunctions. We introduce ambiguous failure in creative human–robot interaction: moments where a robot’s behaviour simultaneously fits formal notions of error (deviation from expected behaviour) and aesthetic notions of creativity (productive violation of expectation). Focusing on jazz performance, we study two recurrent sources of ambiguity for a robotic marimba player: brief non-output while other musicians continue and harmonically risky material that can sound either expressive or incorrect. In an online within-subjects video vignette study (10 clips; N=149), we manipulate evidence of intent through (i) embodied liveness cues during non-output (breathing-like motion vs. complete stillness) and (ii) musical recontextualisation after a risky event (motivic development/clear resolution vs. no recontextualisation). Ratings of appropriateness/correctness showed substantial between-participant dispersion, and ambiguity-targeted clip families exhibited greater disagreement than baseline clips. Embodied liveness cues during non-output reliably increased perceived appropriateness/correctness, whereas the recontextualisation manipulation did not produce a robust shift in immediate judgments. In exploratory analyses, more positive personal attitudes toward robots were associated with higher appropriateness/correctness ratings and lower below-midpoint rates, but this association was attenuated after controlling for participants’ baseline clip evaluations. We discuss implications for failure detection and repair in creative HRI: in performance contexts, “failure” is often an audience diagnosis, and repair may require multi-channel cues that make ongoing intent legible rather than simply correcting the underlying behaviour.