This study examined preschool children’s reasoning about and behavioral interactions with one of the most advanced robotic pets currently on the retail market, Sony’s robotic dog AIBO. Eighty children, equally divided between two age groups, 34–50 months and 58–74 months, participated in individual sessions with two artifacts: AIBO and a stuffed dog. Evaluation and justification results showed similarities in children’s reasoning across artifacts. In contrast, children engaged more often in apprehensive behavior and attempts at reciprocity with AIBO, and more (...) often mistreated the stuffed dog and endowed it with animation. Discussion focuses on how robotic pets, as representative of an emerging technological genre, may be blurring foundational ontological categories, and impacting children’s social and moral development. (shrink)

Studies have shown that using robot pets in dementia care contributes to a reduction in loneliness and anxiety, and other benefits. Studies also show that, even when people know they are dealing with robots, they often treat the robot as though it is a real pet with genuine emotions. This disconnect between beliefs and behavior occurs not just for people living with dementia, but with cognitively healthy adults, including those who are knowledgeable about how robots work. One (...) possible explanation is that robot pets prompt contradictory beliefs, and so the use of robot pets encourages self‐deception. Sparrow argues that this makes the use of robot pets in dementia care morally objectionable. We disagree. We argue that Gendler's concept of alief offers a better explanation of the belief‐behavior disconnect observed when people interact with robot pets. An alief is a mental state composed of an automatic, arational, emotional, and behavioral response to representational input. Aliefs are not beliefs and are not subject to truth norms. Thus, on our view, harms associated with the use of robot pets in dementia care are not likely to include the self‐deceptions that Sparrow suggests. It might seem like philosophical hair‐splitting to claim that deception has not occurred because discordant aliefs rather than false beliefs have been formed, but this distinction matters. We argue that aliefs carry their own risks. These risks are important to consider when using robot pets in dementia care. (shrink)

Interactions between humans and machines that include artificial intelligence are increasingly common in nearly all areas of life. Meanwhile, AI-products are increasingly endowed with emotional characteristics. That is, they are designed and trained to elicit emotions in humans, to recognize human emotions and, sometimes, to simulate emotions. The introduction of such systems in our lives is met with some criticism. There is a rather strong intuition that there is something wrong about getting attached to a machine, about having certain emotions (...) towards it, and about getting involved in a kind of affective relationship with it. In this paper, I want to tackle these worries by focusing on the last aspect: in what sense could it be problematic or even wrong to establish an emotional relationship with EAI-systems? I want to show that the justifications for the widespread intuition concerning the problems are not as strong as they seem at first sight. To do so, I discuss three arguments: the argument from self-deception, the argument from lack of mutuality, and the argument from moral negligence. (shrink)

This paper presents a novel methodological approach of how to design, conduct and analyse robot-assisted play. This approach is inspired by nondirective play therapy. The experimenter participates in the experiments, but the child remains the main leader for play. Besides, beyond inspiration from non-directive play therapy, this approach enables the experimenter to regulate the interaction under specific conditions in order to guide the child or ask her questions about reasoning or affect related to the robot. This approach has (...) been tested in a long-term study with six children with autism in a school setting. An autonomous robot with zoomorphic, dog-like appearance was used in the studies. The children’s progress was analyzed according to three dimensions, namely, Play, Reasoning and Affect. Results from the case-study evaluations have shown the capability of the method to meet each child’s needs and abilities. Children who mainly played solitarily progressively experienced basic imitation games with the experimenter. Children who proactively played socially progressively experienced higher levels of play and constructed more reasoning related to the robot. They also expressed some interest in the robot, including, on occasion, affect. Keywords: Human–Robot Interaction, Robot-Mediated Therapy, Robot-Assisted Play, Non-Directive Play Therapy, Assistive Technology, Autism, Children. (shrink)

We commonly identify something seriously defective in a human life that is lived in ignorance of important but unpalatable truths. At the same time, some degree of misapprehension of reality may be necessary for individual health and success. Morally speaking, it is unclear just how insistent we should be about seeking the truth. Robert Sparrow has considered such issues in discussing the manufacture and marketing of robot ‘pets’, such as Sony’s doglike ‘AIBO’ toy and whatever more advanced devices (...) may supersede it. Though it is not his only concern, Sparrow particularly criticizes such robot pets for their illusory appearance of being living things. He fears that some individuals will subconsciously buy into the illusion, and come to sentimentalize interactions that fail to constitute genuine relationships. In replying to Sparrow, I emphasize that this would be continuous with much of the minor sentimentality that we already indulge in from day to day. Although a disposition to seek the truth is morally virtuous, the virtue concerned must allow for at least some categories of exceptions. Despite Sparrow’s concerns about robot pets (and robotics more generally), we should be lenient about familiar, relatively benign, kinds of self-indulgence in forming beliefs about reality. Sentimentality about robot pets seems to fall within these categories. Such limited self-indulgence can co-exist with ordinary honesty and commitment to truth. (shrink)

I examine the nature of human-robot pet relations that appear to involve genuine affective responses on behalf of humans towards entities, such as robot pets, that, on the face of it, do not seem to be deserving of these responses. Such relations have often been thought to involve a certain degree of sentimentality, the morality of which has in turn been the object of critical attention. In this paper, I dispel the claim that sentimentality is involved in (...) this type of relations. My challenge draws on literature in the philosophy of art and in cognitive science that attempts to solve the so called paradox of fictional emotions, i.e., the seemingly paradoxical way in which we respond emotionally to fictional or imaginary characters and events. If sentimentality were not at issue, neither would its immorality. For the sake of argument, however, I assume in the remaining part of the paper that sentimentality is indeed at play and bring to the fore aspects of its badness or viciousness that have not yet been discussed in connection with robot pets. I conclude that not even these aspects of sentimentality are at issue here. Yet, I argue that there are other reasons to be worried about the wide-spread use of ersatz companionship technology that have to do with the potential loss of valuable, self-defining forms of life. (shrink)

Following the success of Sony Corporation’s “AIBO”, robot cats and dogs are multiplying rapidly. “Robot pets” employing sophisticated artificial intelligence and animatronic technologies are now being marketed as toys and companions by a number of large consumer electronics corporations. -/- It is often suggested in popular writing about these devices that they could play a worthwhile role in serving the needs of an increasingly aging and socially isolated population. Robot companions, shaped like familiar household pets, (...) could comfort and entertain lonely older persons. This goal is misguided and unethical. While there are a number of apparent benefits that might be thought to accrue from ownership of a robot pet, the majority and the most important of these are predicated on mistaking, at a conscious or unconscious level, the robot for a real animal. For an individual to benefit significantly from ownership of a robot pet they must systematically delude themselves regarding the real nature of their relation with the animal. It requires sentimentality of a morally deplorable sort. Indulging in such sentimentality violates a (weak) duty that we have to ourselves to apprehend the world accurately. The design and manufacture of these robots is unethical in so far as it presupposes or encourages this delusion. -/- The invention of robot pets heralds the arrival of what might be called “ersatz companions” more generally. That is, of devices that are designed to engage in and replicate significant social and emotional relationships. The advent of robot dogs offers a valuable opportunity to think about the worth of such companions, the proper place of robots in society and the value we should place on our relationships with them. (shrink)

Although social robots are achieving increasing prominence as companions and carers, their status as partners in an interactive relationship with humans remains unclear. The present paper explores this issue, first, by considering why social robots cannot truly qualify as “Thous”, that is, as surrogate human partners, as they are often assumed to be, and then by briefly considering why it will not do to construe them as mere machines, slaves, or pets, as others have contended. Having concluded that none (...) of these familiar designations does justice to social robots’ still evolving and yet-to-be-defined status, I go on to consider whether engaging in a “relational turn” which prioritises the relationship over the entities in relation, can provide a more satisfactory alternative. In defending this stance, Damiano and Dumouchel contend that in addition to foregrounding the possibility that social robots constitute new types of artificial companions which we can find “companionable in different ways”, the relational turn has the added advantage of providing a more expansive and productive ethical framework for future research and development in this domain. But on balance, it is far from clear that this approach can circumvent the so-called “dummy-human” problem, the contention that social robots are little more than sophisticated toys with the potential to deceive their users about the prospects for genuine partnership and bonding. Accordingly, I conclude that while Damiano and Dumouchel’s shift in “target phenomenology” brings to the fore facets of the interaction that may be difficult to infer by focussing on the relata alone, it is ultimately too “thin” to qualify as a template for robust human-robotic interaction of the sort that could qualify as a genuine partnership. Hence, while their relational turn has its merits in alerting us to the novel possibilities and challenges afforded by this ever-evolving technology and to the limitations of existing frameworks, it is contended that in itself it cannot provide an adequate template for conceptualising what a genuine human–robot partnership might entail. Instead, we need a more expansive approach that can do greater justice to the complexities of human-robotic interaction in its continuities as well as differences from more familiar human prototypes. (shrink)

Social technology can improve the quality of older adults' social lives and mitigate negative mental and physical health outcomes associated with loneliness, but it should be designed collaboratively with this population. In this paper, we used participatory design methods to investigate how robots might be used as social facilitators for middle-aged and older adults in both the US and Japan. We conducted PD workshops in the US and Japan because both countries are concerned about the social isolation of these older (...) adults due to their rapidly aging populations. We developed a novel approach to participatory design of future technologies that spends 2/3 of the PD session asking participants about their own life experiences as a foundation. This grounds the conversation in reality, creates rapport among the participants, and engages them in creative critical thinking. Then, we build upon this foundation, pose an abstract topic, and ask participants to brainstorm on the topic based on their previous discussion. In both countries, participants were eager to actively discuss design ideas for socially facilitative robots and imagine how they might improve their social lives. US participants suggested design ideas for telepresence robots, social distancing robots, and social skills artificial intelligence programs, while Japanese participants suggested ideas for pet robots, robots for sharing experiences, and easy-to-operate instructor robots. Comparing these two countries, we found that US participants saw robots as tools to help facilitate their social connections, while Japanese participants envisioned robots to function as surrogate companions for their parents and distract them from loneliness when they were unavailable. With this paper, we contribute to the literature in two main ways, presenting: A novel approach to participatory design of future technologies that grounds participants in their everyday experience, and Results of the study indicating how middle-aged and older adults from the US and Japan wanted technologies to improve their social lives. Although we conducted the workshops during the COVID-19 pandemic, many findings generalized to other situations related to social isolation, such as older adults living alone. (shrink)

When asked about humanity’s future relationship with computers, Marvin Minsky famously replied “If we’re lucky, they might decide to keep us as pets”. A number of eminent authorities continue to argue that there is a real danger that “super-intelligent” machines will enslave—perhaps even destroy—humanity. One might think that it would swiftly follow that we should abandon the pursuit of AI. Instead, most of those who purport to be concerned about the existential threat posed by AI default to worrying about (...) what they call the “Friendly AI problem”. Roughly speaking this is the question of how we might ensure that the AI that will develop from the first AI that we create will remain sympathetic to humanity and continue to serve, or at least take account of, our interests. In this paper I draw on the “neo-republican” philosophy of Philip Pettit to argue that solving the Friendly AI problem would not change the fact that the advent of super-intelligent AI would be disastrous for humanity by virtue of rendering us the slaves of machines. A key insight of the republican tradition is that freedom requires equality of a certain sort, which is clearly lacking between pets and their owners. Benevolence is not enough. As long as AI has the power to interfere in humanity’s choices, and the capacity to do so without reference to our interests, then it will dominate us and thereby render us unfree. The pets of kind owners are still pets, which is not a status which humanity should embrace. If we really think that there is a risk that research on AI will lead to the emergence of a superintelligence, then we need to think again about the wisdom of researching AI at all. (shrink)

In recent developments in Artificial Intelligence and especially in robotics we can observe a tendency towards building intelligent artefacts that are meant to be social, to have ‘human social’ characteristics like emotions, the ability to conduct dialogue, to learn, to develop personality, character traits, and social competencies. Care, entertainment, pet and educational robots are conceptualised as friendly, understanding partners and credible assistants which communicate ‘naturally’ with users, show emotions and support them in everyday life. Social robots are often designed to (...) interact physically, affectively and socially with humans in order to learn from them. To achieve this goal, roboticists often model the human‐robot interaction on early caregiver‐infant interactions. In this paper I want to analyse prominent visions of these ‘socio‐emotional’ machines as well as early prototypes and commercial products with regard to the human‐machine interface. By means of this I will ask how feminist critiques of technology could be applied to the field of social robotics in which concepts like sociality or emotion are crucial elements while, at the same time, these concepts play an important role in feminist critiques of technology. (shrink)

Although Japanese society has become aware of some types of robots, social acceptance of robots is still not widespread. This study conducted an online questionnaire survey to investigate the relationships between experiences with and knowledge of vacuum, pet-type, and communication robots and acceptance of these robots, including the intention to use and trust. The results suggested that experiences with, knowledge of functions, and acceptance of the robots differed depending on the type of robot, and the influence of these factors (...) on acceptance of the robots also differed depending on the robot types. (shrink)

Recent innovations in computer software development have produced a new breed of pet, AIBO 2, a robotic pet that simulates the behavior of real pets. This paper argues that software developers who create such simulations have ethical responsibilities to product users and to society. The paper concludes with some general ethical guidelines for software developers to follow when engaged in projects involving real-world simulations.

One of the world’s leading philosophers offers aspiring thinkers his personal trove of mind-stretching thought experiments. Over a storied career, Daniel C. Dennett has engaged questions about science and the workings of the mind. His answers have combined rigorous argument with strong empirical grounding. And a lot of fun. Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking offers seventy-seven of Dennett’s most successful "imagination-extenders and focus-holders" meant to guide you through some of life’s most treacherous subject matter: evolution, meaning, mind, and (...) free will. With patience and wit, Dennett deftly deploys his thinking tools to gain traction on these thorny issues while offering readers insight into how and why each tool was built. Alongside well-known favorites like Occam’s Razor and reductio ad absurdum lie thrilling descriptions of Dennett’s own creations: Trapped in the Robot Control Room, Beware of the Prime Mammal, and The Wandering Two-Bitser. Ranging across disciplines as diverse as psychology, biology, computer science, and physics, Dennett’s tools embrace in equal measure light-heartedness and accessibility as they welcome uninitiated and seasoned readers alike. As always, his goal remains to teach you how to "think reliably and even gracefully about really hard questions." A sweeping work of intellectual seriousness that’s also studded with impish delights, Intuition Pumps offers intrepid thinkers—in all walks of life—delicious opportunities to explore their pet ideas with new powers. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Touching TestAI and the Future of Human IntimacyMartha J. Reineke (bio)Each Friday, the New York Times publishes Love Letters, a compendium of articles on courtship. A recent story featured Melinda, a real estate agent, and Calvin, a human resources director.1 They had met at a market deli counter. On their first date, a lasagna dinner at Melinda's home, Calvin posed the question, "What are you looking for in (...) a man?" To his surprise, Melinda reached into her pocket and pulled out a two-page list, "Melinda's Husband Traits." Her 46-item list begins with "Christian, honor God, put Him first" and includes as entry number 37, "He likes to be touched and likes to touch me." Notwithstanding laudable features of Melinda's inventory, if David Levy, President of the International Computer Games Association and an expert on artificial intelligence (AI), is correct in his predictions, in the years ahead, women like Melinda who know exactly what they are looking for in a husband will desire something radically new: a robot. After all, artificial agents will soon possess or improve on every quality the romantically inclined previously have sought in a human partner. [End Page 123]Levi predicts robots will be preferred romantic partners by the middle of this century.2 Capable of providing erotic satisfaction and creating deep emotional bonds with human partners, these robots will be an achievable outcome of AI engineering that already has brought to market industrial and service robots, virtual pets, and caregiver robots for the elderly. Levi offers a research-based inventory of traits a robot will offer its human partner: kindness and understanding, a sense of humor, expressiveness, intelligence, and sociability.3 He pinpoints additional features that will facilitate romance: The ideal robot partner will elicit erotic attraction, give evidence of readiness for a serious relationship with its verbal assertions, and possess a capacity for mutual intimacy.4 Levi's argument is intentionally provocative, for he emphasizes the centrality of sex to future robot/human pairings, waxing rhapsodic about the performative superiority of robots to humans in the sexual act.5Elaborating on potential human love relationships with robots, Levi asserts that a robot will need to master imitation if a human is to want it as a romantic partner. Not only is imitation a central aspect of every human-to-human relationship, but also imitation has been identified by researchers as a crucial element in romantic desire.6 Levi states that human-to-human attraction is founded on similarities between prospective partners in appearance, personality, and social context. It is sustained only through what Levi calls "reciprocal liking."7 For romantic relationships between humans and robots to flourish, they too must engage in acts of reciprocal imitation.In highlighting the necessity of imitation in effective robot and human interactions, Levi draws close to René Girard's theory of "mimetic desire." According to Girard, imitation structures all "wanting,"8 delineating what we aspire to look like or hope to possess and determining what we value, take comfort in, or experience as a threat. Indeed, the individual is never the origin point of its desires. Each of us always desires mimetically—according to the desire of the other.9 As Scott Garrels confirms in Mimesis and Science, researchers studying imitation in developmental, comparative, and social psychology, as well as in neurophysiology and cognitive neuroscience, support Girard's claims: Imitation is fundamental in human life.10 Likewise, Girard concurs with Levi that romantic relationships are primary examples of imitative desire. As described by Girard in Deceit, Desire, and the Novel, imitative behaviors form the romantic triangles that feature prominently in fiction: for example, Odette and the many men enchanted by her in Proust's In Search of Lost Time; Anselmo, Lotario, and Camilla in Don Quixote; and Velchaninov and Troussotzki, along with Troussotzki's deceased wife and prospective fiancée, in Dostoyevsky's The Eternal Husband.11 [End Page 124]Notwithstanding similarities in Levi and Girard's views of imitation, they differ in a crucial respect. Only Girard acknowledges just how extraordinarily fraught mimesis can become. When imitators compete (e.g., for things, status, and experiences), they will contest... (shrink)

Human practices in which animals are involved often include the application of technology: some farmed animals are for example milked robotically or monitored by smart technologies, laboratory animals are adapted to specific purposes through the application of biotechnologies, and pets have their own social media accounts. Animal ethicists have raised concerns about some of these practices, but tend to assume that technologies are just neutral intermediaries in human-animal relations. This paper questions that assumption and addresses how technologies might shape (...) human-animal relations in non-neutral ways. Building on the technological mediation approach, it proposes that technologies can influence human-animal relations by amplifying and reducing certain aspects of animals in human perception or by inviting and inhibiting certain actions towards animals. The paper next considers, in two concretizing steps, how this theoretical starting point can enrich ethical discussions on technology and human-animal relations. First, it shows how the technological mediation approach can help to conceptualize a main concern that has been raised regarding the impact of technologies on human-animal relations, namely the concern that animals might be ‘instrumentalized’ or ‘objectified’ in certain technological practices. Second, it considers how this approach can guide investigations of how particular technologies might affect human-animal relations, taking genetic selection technologies as used in livestock breeding as a case. The paper closes by briefly reviewing the prospects and challenges for the application of the technological mediation approach to human-animal relations, thus sketching directions for future research. (shrink)

One response to the existential threat posed by a super-intelligent AI is to design it to be friendly to us. Some have argued that even if this were possible, the resulting AI would treat us as we do our pets. Sparrow (AI & Soc. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-023-01698-x, 2023) argues that this would be a bad outcome, for such an AI would dominate us—resulting in our freedom being diminished (Pettit in Just freedom: A moral compass for a complex world. WW Norton & (...) Company, 2014). In this paper, I consider whether this would be such a bad outcome. (shrink)

Can robots have significant moral status? This is an emerging topic of debate among roboticists and ethicists. This paper makes three contributions to this debate. First, it presents a theory – ‘ethical behaviourism’ – which holds that robots can have significant moral status if they are roughly performatively equivalent to other entities that have significant moral status. This theory is then defended from seven objections. Second, taking this theoretical position onboard, it is argued that the performative threshold that robots need (...) to cross in order to be afforded significant moral status may not be that high and that they may soon cross it (if they haven’t done so already). Finally, the implications of this for our procreative duties to robots are considered, and it is argued that we may need to take seriously a duty of ‘procreative beneficence’ towards robots. (shrink)

If a robot sends a deceptive signal to a human user, is this always and everywhere an unethical act, or might it sometimes be ethically desirable? Building upon previous work in robot ethics, this article tries to clarify and refine our understanding of the ethics of robotic deception. It does so by making three arguments. First, it argues that we need to distinguish between three main forms of robotic deception (external state deception; superficial state deception; and hidden state (...) deception) in order to think clearly about its ethics. Second, it argues that the second type of deception – superficial state deception – is not best thought of as a form of deception, even though it is frequently criticised as such. And third, it argues that the third type of deception is best understood as a form of betrayal because doing so captures the unique ethical harm to which it gives rise, and justifies special ethical protections against its use. (shrink)

We are living through an era of increased robotisation. Some authors have already begun to explore the impact of this robotisation on legal rules and practice. In doing so, many highlight potential liability gaps that might arise through robot misbehaviour. Although these gaps are interesting and socially significant, they do not exhaust the possible gaps that might be created by increased robotisation. In this article, I make the case for one of those alternative gaps: the retribution gap. This gap (...) arises from a mismatch between the human desire for retribution and the absence of appropriate subjects of retributive blame. I argue for the potential existence of this gap in an era of increased robotisation; suggest that it is much harder to plug this gap than it is to plug those thus far explored in the literature; and then highlight three important social implications of this gap. (shrink)

Sex robots are already a reality: in this provocative text, Maurizio Balistreri explores the fascinating world of future sex, exploring the ethical questions raised by the existence of a sex robot industry.

Soon there will be sex robots. The creation of such devices raises a host of social, legal and ethical questions. In this article, I focus in on one of them. What if these sex robots are deliberately designed and used to replicate acts of rape and child sexual abuse? Should the creation and use of such robots be criminalised, even if no person is harmed by the acts performed? I offer an argument for thinking that they should be. The argument (...) consists of two premises. The first claims that it can be a proper object of the criminal law to regulate wrongful conduct with no extrinsically harmful effects on others. The second claims that the use of robots that replicate acts of rape and child sexual abuse would be wrongful, even if such usage had no extrinsically harmful effects on others. I defend both premises of this argument and consider its implications for the criminal law. I do not offer a conclusive argument for criminalisation, nor would I wish to be interpreted as doing so; instead, I offer a tentative argument and a framework for future debate. This framework may also lead one to question the proposed rationales for criminalisation. (shrink)

Robots are becoming an increasingly pervasive feature of our personal lives. As a result, there is growing importance placed on examining what constitutes appropriate behavior when they interact with human beings. In this paper, we discuss whether companion robots should be permitted to “nudge” their human users in the direction of being “more ethical”. More specifically, we use Rawlsian principles of justice to illustrate how robots might nurture “socially just” tendencies in their human counterparts. Designing technological artifacts in such a (...) way to influence human behavior is already well-established but merely because the practice is commonplace does not necessarily resolve the ethical issues associated with its implementation. (shrink)

Should we grant rights to artificially intelligent robots? Most current and near-future robots do not meet the hard criteria set by deontological and utilitarian theory. Virtue ethics can avoid this problem with its indirect approach. However, both direct and indirect arguments for moral consideration rest on ontological features of entities, an approach which incurs several problems. In response to these difficulties, this paper taps into a different conceptual resource in order to be able to grant some degree of moral consideration (...) to some intelligent social robots: it sketches a novel argument for moral consideration based on social relations. It is shown that to further develop this argument we need to revise our existing ontological and social-political frameworks. It is suggested that we need a social ecology, which may be developed by engaging with Western ecology and Eastern worldviews. Although this relational turn raises many difficult issues and requires more work, this paper provides a rough outline of an alternative approach to moral consideration that can assist us in shaping our relations to intelligent robots and, by extension, to all artificial and biological entities that appear to us as more than instruments for our human purposes. (shrink)

In this paper we propose the notion of “subjective reference” as a conceptual tool that explains how and why human-robot sexual interactions could reframe users approach to human-human sexual interactions. First, we introduce the current debate about Sexual Robotics, situated in the wider discussion about Social Robots, stating the urgency of a regulative framework. We underline the importance of a social-relational approach, mostly concerned about Social Robots impact in human social structures. Then, we point out the absence of a (...) precise framework conceptualizing why Social Robots, and Sexual Robots in particular, may modify users’ sociality and relationality. Within a psychological framework, we propose to consider Sexual Robots as “subjective references”, namely objects symbolically referring to human subjects: we claim that, for the user experience, every action performed upon a Sexual Robot is symbolically directed toward a human subject, including degrading and violent practices. This shifting mechanism may transfer the user relational setting from human-robot interactions to human-human interactions. (shrink)

Sex robots are likely to play an important role in shaping public understandings of sex and of relations between the sexes in the future. This paper contributes to the larger project of understanding how they will do so by examining the ethics of the “rape” of robots. I argue that the design of realistic female robots that could explicitly refuse consent to sex in order to facilitate rape fantasy would be unethical because sex with robots in these circumstances is a (...) representation of the rape of a woman, which may increase the rate of rape, expresses disrespect for women, and demonstrates a significant character defect. Even when the intention is not to facilitate rape, the design of robots that can explicitly refuse consent is problematic due to the likelihood that some users will experiment with raping them. Designing robots that lack the capacity to explicitly refuse consent may be morally problematic depending on which of two accounts of the representational content of sex with realistic humanoid robots is correct. (shrink)

Sexbots are coming. Given the pace of technological advances, it is inevitable that realistic robots specifically designed for people's sexual gratification will be developed in the not-too-distant future. Despite popular culture's fascination with the topic, and the emergence of the much-publicized Campaign Against Sex Robots, there has been little academic research on the social, philosophical, moral, and legal implications of robot sex. This book fills the gap, offering perspectives from philosophy, psychology, religious studies, economics, and law on the possible (...) future of robot-human sexual relationships. (shrink)

The United States Army’s Future Combat Systems Project, which aims to manufacture a “robot army” to be ready for deployment by 2012, is only the latest and most dramatic example of military interest in the use of artificially intelligent systems in modern warfare. This paper considers the ethics of a decision to send artificially intelligent robots into war, by asking who we should hold responsible when an autonomous weapon system is involved in an atrocity of the sort that would (...) normally be described as a war crime. A number of possible loci of responsibility for robot war crimes are canvassed; the persons who designed or programmed the system, the commanding officer who ordered its use, the machine itself. I argue that in fact none of these are ultimately satisfactory. Yet it is a necessary condition for fighting a just war, under the principle of jus in bellum, that someone can be justly held responsible for deaths that occur in the course of the war. As this condition cannot be met in relation to deaths caused by an autonomous weapon system it would therefore be unethical to deploy such systems in warfare. (shrink)

In this paper, we theoretically address the relevance of unintentional and inconsistent interactional elements in human–robot interactions. We argue that elements failing, or poorly succeeding, to reproduce a humanlike interaction create significant consequences in human–robot relational patterns and may affect human–human relations. When considering social interactions as systems, the absence of a precise interactional element produces a general reshaping of the interactional pattern, eventually generating new types of interactional settings. As an instance of this dynamic, we study the (...) absence of metacommunicative abilities in social artifacts. Then, we analyze the pragmatic consequences of the aforementioned absence through the lens of Paul Watzlawick’s interactionist theory. We suggest that a fixed complementary interactional setting may be produced because of the asymmetric understanding, between robots and humans, of metacommunication. We highlight the psychological implications of this interactional asymmetry within Jessica Benjamin’s concept of “mutual recognition”. Finally, we point out the possible shift of dysfunctional interactional patterns from human–robot interactions to human–human ones. (shrink)

Robots are increasingly envisaged as our future cohabitants. However, while considerable progress has been made in recent years in terms of their technological realization, the ability of robots to inter-act with humans in an intuitive and social way is still quite limited. An important challenge for social robotics is to determine how to design robots that can perceive the user’s needs, feelings, and intentions, and adapt to users over a broad range of cognitive abilities. It is conceivable that if robots (...) were able to adequately demonstrate this, humans would eventually accept them as social companions. We argue that the best way to achieve this is using a systematic experimental approach based on behavioral and physiological neuroscience methods such as motion/eye tracking, electroencephalography (EEG), or functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) embedded in interactive human-robot paradigms. This approach requires understanding how humans interact with each other, how they perform tasks together and how they develop feelings of social connection over time, and using these insights to formulate design principles that make social robots attuned to the workings of the human brain. In this review, we put forward the argument that the likelihood of artificial agents being perceived as social companions can be increased by designing them in a way that they are perceived as intentional agents that activate areas in the human brain involved in social-cognitive processing. We first review literature related to social-cognitive mechanisms involved in human-human interactions, and high-light the importance of perceiving others as intentional agents to activate these brain areas. We then discuss how attribution of intentionality can positively affect human-robot interaction by (a) fostering feelings of social connection, empathy and prosociality, and by (b) enhancing performance on joint human-robot tasks. Lastly, we describe circumstances under which attribution of intentionality to robot agents might be disadvantageous, and discuss challenges associated with designing social robots that are inspired by neuroscientific principles. (shrink)

The prospective robots in healthcare intended to be included within the conclave of the nurse-patient relationship—what I refer to as care robots—require rigorous ethical reflection to ensure their design and introduction do not impede the promotion of values and the dignity of patients at such a vulnerable and sensitive time in their lives. The ethical evaluation of care robots requires insight into the values at stake in the healthcare tradition. What’s more, given the stage of their development and lack of (...) standards provided by the International Organization for Standardization to guide their development, ethics ought to be included into the design process of such robots. The manner in which this may be accomplished, as presented here, uses the blueprint of the Value-sensitive design approach as a means for creating a framework tailored to care contexts. Using care values as the foundational values to be integrated into a technology and using the elements in care, from the care ethics perspective, as the normative criteria, the resulting approach may be referred to as care centered value-sensitive design. The framework proposed here allows for the ethical evaluation of care robots both retrospectively and prospectively. By evaluating care robots in this way, we may ultimately ask what kind of care we, as a society, want to provide in the future. (shrink)

'When I play with my cat, who knows if I am not a pastime to her more than she is to me?' - Michel de Montaigne. Why do we live with pets? Is there something more to our relationship with them than simply companionship? What is it we look for in our pets and what does this say about us as human beings? In this fascinating book, Erica Fudge explores the nature of this most complex of relationships and (...) the difficulties of knowing what it is that one is living with when one chooses to share a home with an animal. Fudge argues that our capacity for compassion and ability to live alongside others is evident in our relationships with our pets, those paradoxical creatures who give us a sense of comfort and security while simultaneously troubling the categories human and animal. For what is a pet if it isn't a fully-fledged member of the human family? This book proposes that by crossing over these boundaries pets help construct who it is we think we are. Drawing on the works of modern writers, such as J. M. Coetzee, Elizabeth Marshall Thomas and Jacques Derrida, Fudge shows how pets have been used to think with and to undermine our easy conceptions of human, animal and home. Indeed, "Pets" shows our obsession with domestic animals that reveals many of the paradoxes, contra - dictions and ambiguities of life. Living with pets provides thought-provoking perspectives on our notions of possession and mastery, mutuality and cohabitation, love and dominance. We might think of pets as simply happy, loved additions to human homes but as this captivating book reveals perhaps it is the pets that make the home and without pets perhaps we might not be the humans we think we are. For anyone who has ever wondered, like Montaigne, what their cat is thinking, it will be illuminating reading. (shrink)

Most animals have significant behavioral expertise built in without having to explicitly learn it all from scratch. This expertise is a product of evolution of the organism; it can be viewed as a very long term form of learning which provides a structured system within which individuals might learn more specialized skills or abilities. This paper suggests one possible mechanism for analagous robot evolution by describing a carefully designed series of networks, each one being a strict augmentation of the (...) previous one, which control a six legged walking machine capable of walking over rough terrain and following a person passively sensed in the infrared spectrum. As the completely decentralized networks are augmented. the robot’s performance and behavior repetoire demonstrably improve. The rationale for such demonstrations is that they may provide a hint as to the requirements for automatically building massive networks to carry out complex sensory-motor tasks. The experiments with an actual robot ensure that an essence of reality is maintained and that no critical disabling problems have been ignored. (shrink)

As robots increasingly find their way into the various spheres of human life, the question of religious robots becomes relevant. This article examines from a Catholic-Christian theological perspective whether robots can be used for religious purposes, and it asks how this may be done and what issues are important to consider. In addition, the study contributes to research on the theological engagement with robotics. It is argued that the use of religious robotics dif- fers significantly depending on the specific religion. (...) From a Christian perspective, the use of religious robotics is fundamentally plausible, especially since a wide variety of entities are used as religious media or representations of the divine. However, the use of religious robotics will ultimately be decided by different concepts (e.g. human, life), religious doctrines and culturally transmitted and subjective attitudes. This article places particular focus on the design of reli- gious robotics. It becomes clear that the reasons for accepting religious technology do not lie in the technology itself but in phenomenological preferences and various time- and culture-de- pendent ideas and concepts. It is likely that as robotics rapidly advances and our relationship with it develops, the use of religious robots also will change. Puzio, Anna: Robot Theology: On Theological Engagement with Robotics and Religious Robots. In: Puzio, Anna/Kunkel, Nicole/Klinge, Hendrik (Hg.): Alexa, wie hältst du es mit der Religion? Theologische Zugänge zu Technik und Künstlicher Intelligenz (Theologie und KI 1). Darmstadt: wbg 2023, S. 95–113. DOI: 10.53186/1030373. (shrink)

New research tools such as PET can produce dramatic results. But they can also produce dramatic artifacts. Why is PET to be trusted? We examine both the rationale that justifies interpreting PET as measuring brain activity and the strategies for interpreting PET results functionally. We show that functional ascriptions with PET make important assumptions and depend critically on relating PET results to those secured through other research techniques.