“Robovie, you'll have to go into the closet now”: Children's social and moral relationships with a humanoid robot.

Abstract

Children will increasingly come of age with personified robots and potentially form social and even moral relationships with them. What will such relationships look like? To address this question, 90 children (9-, 12-, and 15-year-olds) initially interacted with a humanoid robot, Robovie, in 15-min sessions. Each session ended when an experimenter interrupted Robovie's turn at a game and, against Robovie's stated objections, put Robovie into a closet. Each child was then engaged in a 50-min structural-developmental interview. Results showed that during the interaction sessions, all of the children engaged in physical and verbal social behaviors with Robovie. The interview data showed that the majority of children believed that Robovie had mental states (e.g., was intelligent and had feelings) and was a social being (e.g., could be a friend, offer comfort, and be trusted with secrets). In terms of Robovie's moral standing, children believed that Robovie deserved fair treatment and should not be harmed psychologically but did not believe that Robovie was entitled to its own liberty (Robovie could be bought and sold) or civil rights (in terms of voting rights and deserving compensation for work performed). Developmentally, while more than half the 15-year-olds conceptualized Robovie as a mental, social, and partly moral other, they did so to a lesser degree than the 9- and 12-year-olds. Discussion focuses on how (a) children's social and moral relationships with future personified robots may well be substantial and meaningful and (b) personified robots of the future may emerge as a unique ontological category.

Lessons from teachers on performing HRI studies with young children in schools

“…One teacher observed that, "as with many stuffed animals, the children seemed to have an attachment to the robot." In prior work, researchers have found that children are indeed attached to the robots-e.g., they are call robots their friends and they are willing to share secrets to robots [2], [18]. Another teacher observed,"they loved the little postcards [that we gave them at the end of the study] and they felt special, and I think that they're so attracted to the robot and sort of curious so that's why what held them, if it weren't something they were scared of.…”

Children’s Age Influences Their Use of Biological and Mechanical Questions Towards a Humanoid

“…To address this, we use an alternative method of open-ended interviews, which have previously explored children's beliefs about robotic agents with promising results [15]. In contrast to prior work in which researchers may guide children to the towards the topic of animacy, We offer children the opportunity to ask self-generated questions towards the robot after HRI scenarios.…”

Transparency, teleoperation, and children's understanding of social robots

“…Prior work suggests that robots are not so simply categorized by children. Children may think of robots as in-between living and non-living [6], [7], attributing psychological and perceptual abilities but not biological properties to them [8]. The understanding children may have of robots as "sort of this and sort of that"-with some combination properties held by pets, puppets, computers, and people-may make sense to them in a way that may not make sense to adults who follow a stricter categorization scheme.…”

“…Younger children will care less about the teleoperator and treat the robot as a social other in both conditions [6], [7]. Older children may feel more awkward and less engagement in the Before condition, and thus perform fewer "social" behaviors (e.g., laughter, asking questions, leaning toward the robot vs. away) and learn less in the learning task due to lack of trust [10].…”