A New Perspective on Robot Ethics through Investigating Human–Robot Interactions with Older Adults

• Published in: Applied sciences Vol. 11; no. 21; p. 10136
• Main Authors: van Maris, Anouk, Zook, Nancy, Dogramadzi, Sanja, Studley, Matthew, Winfield, Alan, Caleb-Solly, Praminda
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Basel MDPI AG 01-11-2021
• Subjects: Adults; attachment; Deception; Emotions; Ethics; Experiments; older adults; Older people; Quality of life; Robotics; Robots; Social interaction; social robot; User experience
• ISSN: 2076-3417; 2076-3417
• DOI: 10.3390/app112110136

This work explored the use of human–robot interaction research to investigate robot ethics. A longitudinal human–robot interaction study was conducted with self-reported healthy older adults to determine whether expression of artificial emotions by a social robot could result in emotional deception and emotional attachment. The findings from this study have highlighted that currently there appears to be no adequate tools, or the means, to determine the ethical impact and concerns ensuing from long-term interactions between social robots and older adults. This raises the question whether we should continue the fundamental development of social robots if we cannot determine their potential negative impact and whether we should shift our focus to the development of human–robot interaction assessment tools that provide more objective measures of ethical impact.