The crying shame of robot nannies

Abstract

Childcare robots are being manufactured and developed with the long term aim of creating surrogate carers. While total child-care is not yet being promoted, there are indications that it is "on the cards". We examine recent research and developments in childcare robots and speculate on progress over the coming years by extrapolating from other ongoing robotics work. Our main aim is to raise ethical questions about the part or full-time replacement of primary carers. The questions are about human rights, privacy, robot use of restraint, deception of children and accountability. But the most pressing ethical issues throughout the paper concern the consequences for the psychological and emotional wellbeing of children. We set these in the context of the child development literature on the pathology and causes of attachment disorders. We then consider the adequacy of current legislation and international ethical guidelines on the protection of children from the overuse of robot care.Who's to say that at some distant moment there might be an assembly line producing a gentle product in the form of a grandmother -whose stock in trade is love. From I

Can robots be responsible moral agents? And why should we care?

“…Similar concerns have been raised about leaving children in the 'care' of robots to the extent that their attachments to humans are compromised (Sharkey and Sharkey 2010) but again there is no legislation or rights that explicitly prevent such a possibility, other than that associated with child neglect. There is an urgent need for something like a digital bill of rights to ensure that there is some protection from the situations that could arise if humans place robots in positions of power over humans.…”

Engineering Cheerful Robots: An Ethical Consideration

“…Nevertheless, technology-driven ethical appraisals are not child-centered, and seldom take into consideration the possibility of detrimental effects on child development or the wider social context (e.g., the home or the school). In contrast, psychology-driven ethical appraisals such as outlined by Amanda and Noel Sharkey [45,46] do highlight issues of emotional attachment, deception of the child, and loss of human contact (see also [33]). Apropos teachers' attitudes to robots in the classroom, research reported in [47] demonstrates the exigency of taking the consideration of ethics beyond design issues and toward engagement with stakeholders' views on how robots may affect their current practices.…”

Personal Care Robots for Children: State of the Art

“…As Sharkey and Sharkey discuss (Sharkey & Sharkey, 2010a), the sensitive response of a robot to a child in a way that establish a fixed and safe attachment is not a certain fact. Because infants' dependencies, firm attachment to a caregiver depends on good development.…”