Dry your eyes 1Running head: DRY YOUR EYESDry Your Eyes: Examining the Roles of Robots for Childcare ApplicationsDavid Feil-Seifer and Maja J Matari´cInteraction LaboratoryCenter for Robotics and Embedded SystemsDepartment of Computer Science, University of Southern CaliforniaLos Angeles, CA USA [email protected]—[email protected] your eyes 2Dry Your Eyes: Examining the Roles of Robots for ChildcareApplicationsIntroductionIn their article, Sharkey & Sharkey (2010) present an ethical appraisal which argues thatusing robots as replacement for childcare applications could lead to neglect on the part of theparents and attachment disorders on the part of the children. They combine current commercialrobot marketing trends with educated extrapolation to describe how childcare robots of thepresent and future could lead to misunderstanding and thus misuse of technology. Specifically,parents could believe that robots are capable caregivers, and therefore abdicate too muchparenting responsibility to machines. In addition, children could believe that robots are reliablesocial role models, and therefore abdicate judgment and emulate incorrect/inappropriatebehavior. This scenario, while frightening, is based on some incorrect assumptions regarding bothhuman perception of social robots and the intended role of socially assistive robot technology(Feil-Seifer & Matari´c, 2005).This critique will not attempt to argue for or against using robots in childcare, but ratherpresent an alternative appraisal grounded in the current state of socially assistive roboticsresearch. In this way, we will refute the Sharkey & Sharkey argument and present acounter-argument that demonstrates that current research in socially assistive robotics is leadingaway from scenarios where a robot is the sole caregiver of a child.We believe that raising ethical concerns about technology is important and valuable.However, such concerns must be based on realistic trends and probabilities, so that theiroutcomes lead to important and relevant issues in childcare, and do not instead distract fromthose very issues.Dry your eyes 3Sharkey & Sharkey ArgumentThe crux of the Sharkey & Sharkey argument is that the use of robots in childcare couldlead to social neglect of the child. This neglect can come in several forms: the parents could beconvinced that the child is receiving adequate care when the robot is not able to provide thatcare; the child could be lead to think that the robot is providing normal social interaction when itis not; and manufacturers of a robot could exaggerate the robot’s capabilities so that the usersbelieve that it is able to adequately care for the child. We aim to clarify the low likelihood ofthese scenarios.Delusion of Social CompetenceThe authors assert that the expressive capabilities of current robots, and therefore those ofrobots in the foreseeable future, give the appearance of social competence. With regards tochildcare applications, this includes the abilities to recognize speech, make eye contact, and makepurposeful movements, and that these expressive capabilities can deceive users into thinking thatthe robot is more capable than it is, because robots do and will continue to lack critical elementsof understanding social behavior, such as natural language processing (NLP), activity recognition,etc.The argument made by the authors is partially correct. However, while there are specializedareas of human-machine interaction where strides have been made in NLP, activity recognition,etc., these are currently narrow and specialized. For unrestricted childcare domains andapplications, such abilities are not within reach for the foreseeable future.The authors also present evidence that current robot manufacturers are advertising robotsas childcare solutions. These robots, as alluded to above, are probably not well suited to beingthe only supervision of a child. This presents the probability that robot vendors could/areexaggerating the capabilities of a robot in potentially irresponsible ways.These points, while troubling if true, are not well supported by the state-of-the-art inrelevant research. Our work and that of others that is exploring using social robots as therapeuticDry your eyes 4tools for children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) found that the best robots of today arenot capable of interacting convincingly with young children in unconstrained, free-play scenarios(Feil-Seifer et al., 2009). We used a humanoid robot that could turn its head and body to face achild, follow the child around the room, and make social gestures in response to the child’s actionsand vocalizations, constituting most of the criteria named by Sharkey & Sharkey as what wouldbe convincing to young children. However, we found that the children in the study (aged 5-10)quickly determined that the robot was not as socially intelligent as a human being. One evenremarked, matter-of-factly, that he thought that the robot was learning disabled. Our otherstudies, involving typically developing children, as well as those of other research groups (Robinset al., 2005; Plaisant et al., 2000; Kanda et al., 2004), have found the same results. This suggeststhat children, both those with social disorders and typically developing ones, are able to discern arobot’s real social capabilities, and are not easily fooled or fooled for very long.The delusion of social competence relies on the user observing social behavior appropriatefor the current social situation in order for the delusion to be sustained. While some robots canbriefly carry on an appropriate and engaging social interaction, no robots as yet can carry on ameaningful and unrestricted social interaction convincingly enough for a human (adult or child)to be deceived into thinking that the robot is socially competent. For such a misconception tooccur, the robot would need to be much more capable than the authors suggest or that thestate-of-the-art makes possible.Lack of Attention and Attachment DisordersSharkey & Sharkey further assert that the lack of proper attention on the part of the robot(or, more accurately, the parents) could lead to attachment disorders. They present a review ofpsychological literature that shows how the lack of certain nurturing social attention can lead tovarious relationship issues, and how such damage can occur during infancy. As we are notpsychologists, we will not comment on the likelihood of attachment disorders, but we agree that