Skip to main content

Socialized Roboethics

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Book cover Roboethics

Part of the book series: Intelligent Systems, Control and Automation: Science and Engineering ((ISCA,volume 79))

Abstract

Socialized or socially assistive robots fall into the more general class of service robots, which, according to the International Service Robot Association (ISRA), are defined as ‘machines that sense, think, and act to benefit or extend human capabilities, and increase human productivity’. Among others, socialized robots could provide continuous care and entertainment of the impaired and the elderly for improving their quality of life at the final period of their life. This chapter presents a convenient classification and a number of definitions of socialized robots including a representative set of anthropomorphic and zoomorphic socialized robots. Then, the chapter discusses the fundamental ethical aspects of socialized robots, and reviews three case studies concerning autistic children-robot and dementia elderly-robot interaction.

The top two awards don’t even go to robots.

Chuck Gozdzinski

Liveone day at a time emphasizing ethics rather than rules.

Wayne Dyer

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Institutional subscriptions

References

  1. Breazeal C (2004) Social interactions in HRI: the robot view. IEEE Trans Man Cybern Syst Part C 34(2):181–186

    Google Scholar 

  2. Breazeal C (2003) Towards sociable robots. Rob Auton Syst 42:167–175

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Breazeal C (2002) Designing sociable robots. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA

    Google Scholar 

  4. Dautenhahn K (1998) The art of designing socially intelligent agents: science, fiction, and the human in the loop. Appl Artif Intell 12(8–9):573–617

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Dautenhahn K (2007) Socially intelligent robots: dimensions of human-robot interaction. Philos Trans R Soc London B Biol Sci 362(1480):679–704

    Google Scholar 

  6. Fong T, Nourbakhsh I, Dautenhahn K (2003) A survey of socially interactive robots. Robot Auton Syst 42:143–166

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  7. Hollerbach JM, Jacobsen SC (1996) Anthropomorphic robots and human interactions. In: Proceedings of First Intetnational Symposium Humanoid Robotics, pp 83–91

    Google Scholar 

  8. Nehaniv CL, Dautenhahn K (2002) The correspondence problem. In: Dautenhahn K, Nehaniv CL (eds) Imitation in animals and artifacts. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, pp 41–61

    Google Scholar 

  9. Breazeal C, Scassellati B (2002) Robots that imitate humans. Trends Cogn Sci 6(11):481–487

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Wada K, Shibata T, Musha T, Kimura S (2008) Robot therapy for elders affected by dementia. IEEE Trans Eng Med Biol 27(4):53–60

    Google Scholar 

  11. Lathan C, Brisben AJ, Safos CS (2005) CosmoBot levels the playing field for disabled children. Interactions 12(2):14–16

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Kahn PH, Freier NG Jr, Friedman B, Severson RL, Feldman EN (2004) Social and moral relationships with robotic others? In: Proceedings of 2004 IEEE international workshop on robot and human interactive communication, Kurashiki, Okayama, pp 20–22

    Google Scholar 

  13. Robot Pets and Toys www.robotshop.com/en/robot-pets-toys.html

  14. Fujita Y, Onaka SI, Takano Y, Funada JUNI, Iwasawa T, Nishizawa T, Sato T, Osada JUNI (2005) Development of childware robot PaPeRo, Nippon Robotto Gakkai Gakujutsu Koenkai Yo Koshu (CD-ROM), pp 1–11

    Google Scholar 

  15. Boucher J (1999) Editorial: interventions with children with autism methods based on play. Child Lang Teach Ther 15:1–15

    Google Scholar 

  16. Robins B, Dautenhahn K, Dubowski K (2005) Robots as isolators or mediators for children with autism? A cautionary tale. In: Proceeding of symposium on robot companions hard problems and open challenges in human robot interaction, Hatfield, pp 82–88, 14–15 April 2005

    Google Scholar 

  17. Feil-Seifer D, Mataric MJ (2011) Ethical principles for socially assistive robotics. IEEE Robot Autom Mag 18(1):24–31

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  18. Dogramadzi S, Virk S, Tokhi O, Harper C (2009) Service robot ethics. In: Proceedings of 12th international conference on climbing and walking robots and the support technologies for mobile machines, Istanbul, Turkey, pp 133–139

    Google Scholar 

  19. http://www.infoniac.com/hi-tech/robotics-expert-calls-for-robot-ethics-guidelines.html

  20. http://www.respectproject.org/ethics/principles.php

  21. Wada K, Shibata T, Saito T, Sakamoto K, Tanie K (2003) Psychological and social effects of one year robot assisted activity on elderly people at a health service facility for the aged. In: Proceedings of IEEE international conference on robotics and automation (ICRA), Taipei, pp 2785–2790

    Google Scholar 

  22. Melson GF, Kahn PH Jr, Beck A, Friedman B (2009) Robotic pets in human lives: Implications for the human-animal bond and for human relationships with personified technologies. J Soc Issues 65(3):545–567

    Article  Google Scholar 

  23. Kahn Jr PH, Friedman B, Hagman J (2002) I care about him as a pal: conceptions of robotic pets in on-line AIBO discussion forums. In: Proceedings of CHI’02 on human factors in computing systems, pp 632–633

    Google Scholar 

  24. Kahn PH, Friedman Jr B, Perez-Granados DR, Freier NG (2004) Robotic pets in the lives of preschool children. In: Proceedings of CHI’04 (extended abstracts) on human factors in computing systems, pp 1449–1452

    Google Scholar 

  25. Stanton CM, Kahn PH, Severson Jr RL, Ruckert JH, Gill BT (2008) Robot animals might aid in the social development of children with autism. In: Proceedings on 3rd ACM/IEEE international conference on human robot interaction, pp 271–278

    Google Scholar 

  26. Friedman B, Kahn PH Jr, Hagman J (2003) Hardware companions? What on-line AIBO discussion forums reveal about the human-robotic relationships. In: Proceedings of SIGCHI conference on human factors in computing systems, pp 273–290

    Google Scholar 

  27. Kahn PH et al (2012) Robovie moral accountability study HRI 2012.pdf. http://depts.washington.edu/hints

  28. Dautenhahn K, Werry I (2004) Towards interactive robots in autism therapy: background, motivation, and challenges. Pragmat Cogn 12(1):1–35

    Article  Google Scholar 

  29. Robins B, Dautenhahn K, Dickerson P (2009) From isolation to communication: a case study evaluation of robot assisted play for children with autism with a minimally expressive humanoid robot. In: Proceedings of 2nd international conference on advances in computer-human interactions (ACHI’09), Cancum, Mexico, 1–7 Feb 2009

    Google Scholar 

  30. Robins B, Dautenhahn K et al (2012) Scenarios of robot-assisted play for children with cognitive and physical disabilities. Interact Stud 13(2):189–234

    Article  Google Scholar 

  31. Robins B, Dautenhahn K (2014) Tactile interactions with a humanoid robot: novel play scenario implementations with children with autism. Int J Social Robot 6:397–415

    Article  Google Scholar 

  32. Wainer J, Robins B, Amirabdollahian F, Dautenhahn K (2014) Using the humanoid robot KASPAR to autonomously play triadic games and facilitate collaborative play among children with autism. IEEE Trans Auton Mental Dev 6(3):183–198

    Article  Google Scholar 

  33. Ferrari E, Robins B, Dautenhahn K (2010) Does it work?’’ A framework to evaluate the effectiveness of a robotic toy for children with special needs. In: Proceedings of 19th international symposium on robot and human interactive communication, Principe di Piemonte-Viareggio, pp 100–106, 12–15 Sep 2010

    Google Scholar 

  34. http://www.aurora-project.com/

  35. Robins B, Dautenhahn K, te Boekhorst R, Billard A (2004) Effects of repeated exposure of a humanoid robot on children with autism: can we encourage basic social interaction skills? In: Keates S, Clarkson J, Langdon J, Robinson P (eds) Designing a more inclusive world, Springer, London, pp 225–236

    Google Scholar 

  36. AIST: National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), Paro found to improve brain function in patients with cognition disorders. Transactions of the AIST, 16 Sept 2005

    Google Scholar 

  37. Sullins P (2006) When is a robot a moral agent? Int Rev Inf Ethics 6(12):23–30

    Google Scholar 

  38. Calo CJ, Hunt-Bull N, Lewis L, Metzer T (2011) Ethical implications of using Paro robot with a focus on dementia patient care. In: Proceeding of 2011 AAI workshop (WS-11–12) on human-robot interaction in elder care, pp 20–24

    Google Scholar 

  39. Barcousky L (2010) PARO Pals: Japanese robot has brought out the best in elderly with Alzheimer’s disease. Pittsburg Post-Gazette

    Google Scholar 

  40. Kahn P et al. Do people hold a humanoid robot morally accountable for the harm it causes? http://depts.washington.edu/hints/publications

  41. Saint-Aimé S, Le-Pevedic B, Duhaut D iGrace: emotional computational model for Eml companion robot. In: Kulyukin VA (ed) Advances in human robot interaction, in-tech (Open source: www.interchopen.com)

  42. Sparrow R, Sparrow L (2006) In the hands of machines? The future of aged care. Minds Mach 16:141–161

    Article  Google Scholar 

  43. Borenstein J, Pearson Y (2010) Robot caregivers: harbingers or expanded freedom for all? Ethics Inf Technol 12:277–288

    Article  Google Scholar 

  44. Lazarus RS (1991) Emotion and adaptation. Oxford University Press, Oxford/New York

    Google Scholar 

  45. Lazarus RS (2001) Relational meaning and discrete emotions. Oxford University Press, Oxford/New York

    Google Scholar 

  46. Sherer KR (2005) What are emotions? How can they be measured? Soc Sci Inf 44(4):695–729

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Spyros G. Tzafestas .

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2016 Springer International Publishing Switzerland

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Tzafestas, S.G. (2016). Socialized Roboethics. In: Roboethics. Intelligent Systems, Control and Automation: Science and Engineering, vol 79. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-21714-7_8

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-21714-7_8

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-21713-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-21714-7

  • eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics