78 Just ordinAry robots
sex robots for recreational use, “[c]hild-like robots could be used for
paedophiles the way methadone is used to treat drug addicts, there
are no presumptions that this will assuredly yield positive results—I
only believe it is worth investigating in a controlled way to possibly
provide better protection to society from recidivism in sex oenders,
if we can save some children, I think it’s a worthwhile project.”* e
robotics expert Ben Way also supports Arkin’s idea. Speaking to the
MailOnline, Way says: “Will child sex bots lead to some people act-
ing out their dark and disgusting desires on real children? Yes, but I
suspect having child sex bots will signicantly reduce the number of
people overall who abuse children. … As repugnant as it may seem
society should support this technology and do proper research into
its eects before making a snap decision based on social norms, the
most important thing we can do as a society is reduce harm to chil-
dren whatever way we can do it.”
†
It is clear that research is needed,
since there is also the concern that a child sex robot could encourage
pedophiles to act on their impulses instead of serving as a safe outlet
for them. As Pardes states: “But we’re not going to get anywhere with
rehabilitating paedophiles if we treat them like monsters by encourag-
ing them to go at it with weird, childlike sex bots.”
‡
2.5 Observational Conclusions
In this chapter, we have discussed three types of personal robots: the
mechanoid functional household robot, the humanoid companion
robot, and the android sex robot. e last two types of robots are
socially interactive robots, where the robot body and the human–robot
interaction is essential for the anthropomorphism, that is, attributing
human characteristics and behaviors to nonhuman subjects in order
to interact in a smooth way with humans. is anthropomorphism
especially raises ethical questions.
*
www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2014/07/14/are-child-sex-robots-inevitable/.
†
www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2695010/Could-child-sex-robots-used-
treat-paedophiles-Researchers-say-sexbots-inevitable-used-like-methadone-drug-
addicts.html.
‡
www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-28353238.
79home is where the robot is
In this nal section, we will briey discuss the expectations of these
three types of robots in the short and the medium term, summarize
the main ethical issues, and indicate some regulatory issues.
2.5.1 Household Robots
In relation to the household robots, we see a gap between the high
expectations concerning multifunctional robots that completely take
over housework and the actual performance of the currently available
robots. Few of the current developments point toward the introduc-
tion of multifunctional robots that will do all the cleaning for us.
Despite all the technological developments, for the time being house-
hold robots have quite a high science ction level and are still very
much in their infancy.*
It is unlikely that the monomaniacal simple cleaning robots such as
vacuum-cleaning robots and robots that clean windows will turn up
in large numbers in our households. ese monomaniacal robots turn
out not to be ecient because they cannot perform a specic entire
household task, and they also force the user to adapt and streamline
part of their environment. As we have seen in the vacuum-cleaning
robot and the ironing robot, only parts of vacuuming and ironing jobs
can be taken over. e household chores appear to be far more com-
plex than previously thought, which leads to major challenges for the
rationalization of household tasks so that they can be performed by a
robot, since this rationalization encounters fundamental limitations.
Many situations in which a household task must be performed do
require a lot of decisions, which are largely based on common sense,
for which no xed algorithms exist, that is, this is the frame problem.
Robots for these decisions cannot really be constructed.
Having “a robot in every home” in the coming years, in our opin-
ion, is highly unlikely. We expect that this cannot yet be realized in
the short or the medium term. Many technical challenges must be
overcome before the home robot can convince the public that it can
take over household chores completely and eciently.
*
See, for example, http://teresaescrig.com/service-robotics-is-still-very-much-in-
its-infancy/, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/20/
AR2010122004781.html.
80 Just ordinAry robots
2.5.2 Companion and Sex Robots
2.5.2.1 Expectations Compared to the household robot, expectations
concerning the companion robot are much less predened. e goals
are just communicating, playing, and relaxing. e need is not set,
but arises in the interaction. We see an age-old dream come true:
devices that resemble humans or animals, and with which we can
interact. Examples are the dog AIBO, the uy cuddly toy Furby,
JIBO, and the sex robot Roxxxy—all four invite us to play out social
and/or physical interaction. People become attached to the robot and
give it human attributes.
Nevertheless, we certainly cannot speak of a success story. The
socially interactive robots that are currently available are very lim-
ited in their social interaction and are very predictable, so con-
sumers will not remain fascinated for long and will forget about
them after a short while. At this time—and probably within the
next 10years—we should therefore consider commercially avail-
able socially interactive robots such as AIBO, Furby, and JIBO as
fads and gadgets whose lustre soon fades, rather than as kinds of
family friends. How the sex robot will develop is still unknown,
but the sex industry and some robot technologists see a great
future for this robot and consider the sex robot to be a driving
force behind the development of social robots and human–robot
interaction research. Human–robot interaction science is still in
its infancy but is one of the spearheads of ICT research with a
long-term goal of the participation of the robot in human spheres.
However, in order to let the robot interact with humans in a suc-
cessful manner, many obstacles must still be overcome in order
for there to be a social robot, which has the properties defined
by Fong etal. (2003): it can express and observe feelings; is able
to communicate via a high-level dialogue; has the ability to learn
social skills, to maintain social relationships, to provide natural
cues such as looks and gestures; and has (or simulates) a certain
personality and character. It will take decades before a social robot
has matured enough to incorporate these properties, but modern
technology will make it increasingly possible to interact with
robots in a refined manner. This will turn out to be a very gradual
process.
81home is where the robot is
2.5.2.2 Social, Ethical, and Regulatory Issues e humanoid companion
robot is modeled with anthropomorphism in mind. e anthropomor-
phism is accomplished by the rationalization of social interaction by
research in the eld of human–robot interaction. is rationalization
raises all sorts of social and ethical questions, particularly related to
dehumanization, such as what inuence do companion robots have on
the development of children and on our human relationships? Fears
range from damaging social development, especially in children, to
no longer being able to cope with other people with all their prob-
lems and their bad habits and to an unwillingness to invest in long-
term relationships. Relationships with robots are much less binding,
making people less empathetic because intimacy is avoided. ere
is a fear of social de-skilling as people become attached to robots.
Little research has been done in this eld, but it is important that we
think about boundaries: where and when do companion robots have
a positive socializing eect and where do we expect de-socialization?
Attention to the inuence of robotics on our social capital should
therefore be a major item on the public issues agenda.
e android sex robot, the ultimate symbol of the rationalization
of lust, may in future contribute to solving the general problem of
sex slavery and the tracking of women, an issue which is currently
ignored by many politicians. As long as policy makers in countries
are unwilling to ban visits to prostitutes, as happens for example in
Sweden, Norway, and Finland, they should stimulate the introduc-
tion of robotic brothels. Imperative to this is whether the sex robot
is actually an alternative to a human prostitute for prostitute clients.
Research in this eld is still lacking.
In addition to the ethical issues concerning the dehumanization of
the human companion robot, which also are of importance in rela-
tion to sex robots, sex robots put forward the issue of sex with child
robots and the associated question of whether child–robot sex should
be punishable. e questions that now arise are whether this child–
robot sex contributes to a subculture that promotes sexual abuse of
children, or whether it reduces the sexual abuse of children. e cur-
rent national legislations do not establish that sex with child robots is
a criminal oence. National legislators (or, for example, the European
Commission) will have to create a legal framework if this behavior is
to be prohibited.
82 Just ordinAry robots
Interview with Kerstin Dautenhahn (Professor of Articial
Intelligence, University of Hertfordshire, United Kingdom)
“I don’t need a robot to respond to my every smile and frown.”
“Domestic and care robots are getting better and better at human-
like communication. But will they ever really get the hang of it? And
perhaps more importantly, why should we want them to in the rst
place?” asks Professor Kerstin Dautenhahn.
e skills of social robots have advanced a great deal. Ten years
ago, they could only tell people apart who looked directly into the
camera under good lighting conditions. Nowadays, face recognition
software is much more exible.
Speech recognition too has advanced, though it still has serious
limitations. Typically, it has to be trained by the individual user
before it will do a good job, and then only in certain domains, such
as dictation of letters. It can’t do this important thing that we do all
the time: guess what the other person is saying. Listening is much
more than guring out how phonemes combine into words and sen-
tences. It’s also about prediction and anticipation, based on who is
talking and about what. We’ll see more progress, I’m sure, but we
tend to underestimate how hard it is. e AI pioneers in the 1950s,
such as Marvin Minsky, thought they could solve ‘the speech prob-
lem’ in two months. I don’t expect we will ever solve it, because
it covers the whole of AI: cognition, intelligence, personality, the
question of embodiment, theory of mind. Human language cannot
be interpreted on the basis of the words alone. ings such as meta-
phor, humor and irony also enter into it. e fact that highly intelli-
gent people with autism have trouble understanding these illustrates
how complicated they are.
Another skill that robots have become better at is interpreting the
facial expressions that come with strong emotions. However, in daily
life, we don’t experience much ecstatic happiness or deep sadness. We
just smile, or we are somewhat annoyed. For a robotic personal assis-
tant to be useful, it should be able to recognize the subtler emotions.
Which implies that it should also notice our scratching our heads or
rubbing our chins, for human communication is multimodal. It’s not
just the face, not just the posture, not just the words or the voice or
the gaze, it’s all of that and more. Robots have not yet integrated all
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