Artificial Intelligence - Personhood And Nonhuman Rights.

Questions regarding the autonomy, culpability, and dispersed accountability of smart robots have sparked a popular and intellectual discussion over the idea of rights and personhood for artificial intelligences in recent decades.

The agency of intelligent computers in business and commerce is of importance to legal systems.

Machine awareness, dignity, and interests pique the interest of philosophers.

Personhood is in many respects a fabrication that emerges from normative views that are renegotiating, if not equalizing, the statuses of humans, artificial intelligences, animals, and other legal persons, as shown by issues relating to smart robots and AI.

Definitions and precedents from previous philosophical, legal, and ethical attempts to define human, corporate, and animal persons are often used in debates about electronic personhood.

In his 1909 book The Nature and Sources of Law, John Chipman Gray examined the concept of legal personality.

Gray points out that when people hear the word "person," they usually think of a human being; nevertheless, the technical, legal definition of the term "person" focuses more on legal rights.

According to Gray, the issue is whether an entity can be subject to legal rights and obligations, and the answer depends on the kind of entity being considered.

Gray, on the other hand, claims that a thing can only be a legal person if it has intellect and volition.

Charles Taylor demonstrates in his article "The Concept of a Person" (1985) that to be a person, one must have certain rights.

Per sonhood, as Gray and Taylor both recognize, is centered on legality in respect to having guaranteed freedoms.

Legal individuals may, for example, engage into contracts, purchase property, and be sued.

Legal people are likewise protected by the law and have certain rights, including the right to life.

Not all legal people are humans, and not all humans are persons in the perspective of the law.

Gray demonstrates how Roman temples and medieval churches were seen as individuals with certain rights.

Personhood is now conferred to companies and government entities under the law.

Despite the fact that these entities are not human, the law recognizes them as people, which means they have rights and are subject to certain legal obligations.

Alternatively, there is still a lot of discussion regarding whether human fetuses are legal persons.

Humans in a vegetative condition are likewise not recognized as having personhood under the law.

This personhood argument, which focuses on rights related to intellect and volition, has prompted concerns about whether intelligent animals should be awarded persons.

The Great Ape Project, for example, was created in 1993 to advocate for apes' rights, such as their release from captivity, protection of their right to life, and an end to animal research.

Marine animals were deemed potential humans in India in 2013, resulting in a prohibition on their custody.

Sandra, an orangutan, was granted the right to life and liberty by an Argentinian court in 2015.

Some individuals have sought personhood for androids or robots based on moral concerns for animals.

For some individuals, it is only natural that an android be given legal protections and rights.

Those who disagree think that we cannot see androids in the same light as animals since artificial intelligence was invented and engineered by humans.

In this perspective, androids are both machines and property.

At this stage, it's impossible to say if a robot may be considered a legal person.

However, since the defining elements of personhood often intersect with concerns of intellect and volition, the argument over whether artificial intelligence should be accorded personhood is fueled by these factors.

Personhood is often defined by two factors: rights and moral standing.

A person's moral standing is determined by whether or not they are seen as valuable and, as a result, treated as such.

However, Taylor goes on to define the category of person by focusing on certain abilities.

To be categorized as a per son, he believes, one must be able to recognize the difference between the future and the past.

A person must also be able to make decisions and establish a strategy for his or her future.

A person must have a set of values or morals in order to be considered a human.

In addition, a person's self-image or sense of identity would exist.

In light of these requirements, those who believe that androids might be accorded personality admit that these beings would need to possess certain capacities.

F. Patrick Hubbard, for example, believes that robots should only be accorded personality if they satisfy specific conditions.

These qualities include having a sense of self, having a life goal, and being able to communicate and think in sophisticated ways.

An alternative set of conditions for awarding personality to an android is proposed by David Lawrence.

For starters, he talks about AI having awareness, as well as the ability to comprehend information, learn, reason, and have subjectivity, among other things.

Although his concentration is on the ethical treatment of animals, Peter Singer offers a much simpler approach to personhood.

The distinguishing element of conferring personality, in his opinion, is suffering.

If anything can suffer, it should be treated the same regardless of whether it is a person, an animal, or a computer.

In fact, Singer considers it wrong to deny any being's pain.

Some individuals feel that if androids meet some or all of the aforementioned conditions, they should be accorded personhood, which comes with individual rights such as the right to free expression and freedom from slavery.

Those who oppose artificial intelligence being awarded personhood often feel that only natural creatures should be given personhood.

Another point of contention is the robot's position as a human-made item.

In this situation, since robots are designed to follow human instructions, they are not autonomous individuals with free will; they are just an item that people have worked hard to create.

It's impossible to give an android rights if it doesn't have its own will and independent mind.

Certain limitations may bind androids, according to David Calverley.

Asimov's Laws of Robotics, for example, may constrain an android.

If such were the case, the android would lack the capacity to make completely autonomous decisions.

Others argue that artificial intelligence lacks a critical component of persons, such as a soul, emotions, and awareness, all of which have previously been used to reject animal existence.

Even in humans, though, anything like awareness is difficult to define or quantify.

Finally, resistance to android personality is often motivated by fear, which is reinforced by science fiction literature and films.

In such stories, androids are shown as possessing greater intellect, potentially immortality, and a desire to take over civilization, displacing humans.

Each of these concerns, according to Lawrence Solum, stems from a dread of anything that isn't human, and he claims that humans reject personhood for AI only because they lack human DNA.

Such an attitude bothers him, and he compares it to American slavery, in which slaves were denied rights purely because they were not white.

He objects to an android being denied rights just because it is not human, particularly since other things have emotions, awareness, and intellect.

Although the concept of personality for androids is still theoretical, recent events and discussions have brought it up in a practical sense.

Sophia, a social humanoid robot, was created by Hanson Robotics, a Hong Kong-based business, in 2015.

It first debuted in public in March 2016, and in October 2017, it became a Saudi Arabian citizen.

Sophia was also the first nonhuman to be conferred a United Nations title when she was dubbed the UN Development Program's inaugural Innovation Champion in 2017.

Sophia has made talks and interviews all around the globe.

Sophia has even indicated a wish to own a house, marry, and have a family.

The European Parliament sought in early 2017 to give robots "electronic identities," making them accountable for any harm they cause.

Those who supported the reform regarded legal personality as having the same legal standing as corporations.

In contrast, over 150 experts from 14 European nations signed an open letter in 2018 opposing this legislation, claiming that it was unsuitable for absolving businesses of accountability for their products.

The personhood of robots is not included in a revised proposal from the European Parliament.

However, the dispute about culpability continues, as illustrated by the death of a pedestrian in Arizona by a self-driving vehicle in March 2018.

Our notions about who merits ethical treatment have evolved through time in Western history.

Susan Leigh Anderson views this as a beneficial development since she associates the expansion of rights for more entities with a rise in overall ethics.

As more animals are granted rights and continue to do so, the incomparable position of humans may evolve.

If androids begin to process in comparable ways to the human mind, our understanding of personality may need to expand much further.

The word "person" covers a set of talents and attributes, as David DeGrazia explains in Human Identity and Bioethics (2012).

Any entity exhibiting these qualities, including artificial intelligence, might be considered as a human in such situation. 

~ Jai Krishna Ponnappan

Find Jai on Twitter | LinkedIn | Instagram

You may also want to read more about Artificial Intelligence here.

See also: 

Asimov, Isaac; Blade Runner; Robot Ethics; The Terminator.

References & Further Reading:

Anderson, Susan L. 2008. “Asimov’s ‘Three Laws of Robotics’ and Machine Metaethics.” AI & Society 22, no. 4 (April): 477–93.

Calverley, David J. 2006. “Android Science and Animal Rights, Does an Analogy Exist?” Connection Science 18, no 4: 403–17.

DeGrazia, David. 2005. Human Identity and Bioethics. New York: Cambridge University Press. Gray, John Chipman. 1909. The Nature and Sources of the Law. New York: Columbia University Press.

Hubbard, F. Patrick. 2011. “‘Do Androids Dream?’ Personhood and Intelligent Artifacts.” Temple Law Review 83: 405–74.

Lawrence, David. 2017. “More Human Than Human.” Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 26, no. 3 (July): 476–90.

Solum, Lawrence B. 1992. “Legal Personhood for Artificial Intelligences.” North Caro￾lina Law Review 70, no. 4: 1231–87.

Taylor, Charles. 1985. “The Concept of a Person.” In Philosophical Papers, Volume 1: Human Agency and Language, 97–114. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Artificial Intelligence - Who Is Helen Nissenbaum?

 

In her research, Helen Nissenbaum (1954–), a PhD in philosophy, looks at the ethical and political consequences of information technology.

She's worked at Stanford University, Princeton University, New York University, and Cornell Tech, among other places.

Nissenbaum has also worked as the primary investigator on grants from the National Security Agency, the National Science Foundation, the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, the United States Department of Health and Human Services, and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, among others.

Big data, machine learning, algorithms, and models, according to Nissenbaum, lead to output outcomes.

Her primary issue, which runs across all of these themes, is privacy.

Nissenbaum explores these problems in her 2010 book, Privacy in Context: Technology, Policy, and the Integrity of Social Life, by using the concept of contextual integrity, which views privacy in terms of acceptable information flows rather than merely prohibiting all information flows.

In other words, she's interested in establishing an ethical framework within which data may be obtained and utilized responsibly.

The challenge with developing such a framework, however, is that when many data sources are combined, or aggregated, it becomes possible to understand more about the people from whose the data was obtained than it would be feasible to accomplish with each individual source of data.

Such aggregated data is used to profile consumers, allowing credit and insurance businesses to make judgments based on the information.

Outdated data regulation regimes hamper such activities even more.

One big issue is that the distinction between monitoring users to construct profiles and targeting adverts to those profiles is blurry.

To make things worse, adverts are often supplied by third-party websites other than the one the user is currently on.

This leads to the ethical dilemma of many hands, a quandary in which numerous parties are involved and it is unclear who is ultimately accountable for a certain issue, such as maintaining users' privacy in this situation.

Furthermore, because so many organizations may receive this information and use it for a variety of tracking and targeting purposes, it is impossible to adequately inform users about how their data will be used and allow them to consent or opt out.

In addition to these issues, the AI systems that use this data are biased itself.

This prejudice, on the other hand, is a social issue rather than a computational one, since much of the scholarly effort focused on resolving computational bias has been misplaced.

As an illustration of this prejudice, Nissenbaum cites Google's Behavioral Advertising system.

When a search contains a name that is traditionally African American, the Google Behavioral Advertising algorithm will show advertising for background checks more often.

This sort of racism isn't encoded into the coding; rather, it develops through social contact with adverts, since those looking for traditionally African-American names are more likely to click on background check links.

Correcting these bias-related issues, according to Nissenbaum, would need considerable regulatory reforms connected to the ownership and usage of big data.

In light of this, and with few data-related legislative changes on the horizon, Nissenbaum has worked to devise measures that can be implemented right now.

Obfuscation, which comprises purposely adding superfluous information that might interfere with data gathering and monitoring procedures, is the major framework she has utilized to construct these tactics.

She claims that this is justified by the uneven power dynamics that have resulted in near-total monitoring.

Nissenbaum and her partners have created a number of useful internet browser plug-ins based on this obfuscation technology.

TrackMeNot was the first of these obfuscating browser add-ons.

This pluinator makes random queries to a number of search engines in attempt to contaminate the stream of data obtained and prevent search businesses from constructing an aggregated profile based on the user's genuine searches.

This plug-in is designed for people who are dissatisfied with existing data rules and want to take quick action against companies and governments who are aggressively collecting information.

This approach adheres to the obfuscation theory since, rather than concealing the original search phrases, it just hides them with other search terms, which Nissenbaum refers to as "ghosts." Adnostic is a Firefox web browser prototype plugin aimed at addressing the privacy issues related with online behavioral advertising tactics.

Currently, online behavioral advertising is accomplished by recording a user's activity across numerous websites and then placing the most relevant adverts at those sites.

Multiple websites gather, aggregate, and keep this behavioral data forever.

Adnostic provides a technology that enables profiling and targeting to take place exclusively on the user's computer, with no data exchanged with third-party websites.

Although the user continues to get targeted advertisements, third-party websites do not gather or keep behavioral data.

AdNauseam is yet another obfuscation-based plugin.

This program, which runs in the background, clicks all of the adverts on the website.

The declared goal of this activity is to contaminate the data stream, making targeting and monitoring ineffective.

Advertisers' expenses will very certainly rise as a result of this.

This project proved controversial, and in 2017, it was removed from the Chrome Web Store.

Although workarounds exist to enable users to continue installing the plugin, its loss of availability in the store makes it less accessible to the broader public.

Nissenbaum's book goes into great length into the ethical challenges surrounding big data and the AI systems that are developed on top of it.

Nissenbaum has built realistic obfuscation tools that may be accessed and utilized by anybody interested, in addition to offering specific legislative recommendations to solve troublesome privacy issues.

~ Jai Krishna Ponnappan

Find Jai on Twitter | LinkedIn | Instagram

You may also want to read more about Artificial Intelligence here.

See also: 

Biometric Privacy and Security; Biometric Technology; Robot Ethics.

References & Further Reading:

Barocas, Solon, and Helen Nissenbaum. 2009. “On Notice: The Trouble with Notice and Consent.” In Proceedings of the Engaging Data Forum: The First International Forum on the Application and Management of Personal Electronic Information, n.p. Cambridge, MA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Barocas, Solon, and Helen Nissenbaum. 2014. “Big Data’s End Run around Consent and Anonymity.” In Privacy, Big Data, and the Public Good, edited by Julia Lane, Victoria Stodden, Stefan Bender, and Helen Nissenbaum, 44–75. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Brunton, Finn, and Helen Nissenbaum. 2015. Obfuscation: A User’s Guide for Privacy and Protest. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Lane, Julia, Victoria Stodden, Stefan Bender, and Helen Nissenbaum, eds. 2014. Privacy, Big Data, and the Public Good. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Nissenbaum, Helen. 2010. Privacy in Context: Technology, Policy, and the Integrity of Social Life. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Artificial Intelligence - Who Is Anne Foerst?

 

 

Anne Foerst (1966–) is a Lutheran clergyman, theologian, author, and computer science professor at Allegany, New York's St. Bonaventure University.

In 1996, Foerst earned a doctorate in theology from the Ruhr-University of Bochum in Germany.

She has worked as a research associate at Harvard Divinity School, a project director at MIT, and a research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.

She supervised the God and Computers Project at MIT, which encouraged people to talk about existential questions brought by scientific research.

Foerst has written several scientific and popular pieces on the need for improved conversation between religion and science, as well as shifting concepts of personhood in the light of robotics research.

God in the Machine, published in 2004, details her work as a theological counselor to the MIT Cog and Kismet robotics teams.

Foerst's study has been influenced by her work as a hospital counselor, her years at MIT collecting ethnographic data, and the writings of German-American Lutheran philosopher and theologian Paul Tillich.

As a medical counselor, she started to rethink what it meant to be a "normal" human being.

Foerst was inspired to investigate the circumstances under which individuals are believed to be persons after seeing variations in physical and mental capabilities in patients.

In her work, Foerst contrasts between the terms "human" and "person," with human referring to members of our biological species and per son referring to a person who has earned a form of reversible social inclusion.

Foerst uses the Holocaust as an illustration of how personhood must be conferred but may also be revoked.

As a result, personhood is always vulnerable.

Foerst may explore the inclusion of robots as individuals using this personhood schematic—something people bestow to each other.

Tillich's ideas on sin, alienation, and relationality are extended to the connections between humans and robots, as well as robots and other robots, in her work on robots as potential people.

• People become alienated, according to Tillich, when they ignore opposing polarities in their life, such as the need for safety and novelty or freedom.

• People reject reality, which is fundamentally ambiguous, when they refuse to recognize and interact with these opposing forces, cutting out or neglecting one side in order to concentrate entirely on the other.

• People are alienated from their lives, from the people around them, and (for Tillich) from God if they do not accept the complicated conflicts of existence.

The threat of reducing all things to items or data that can be measured and studied, as well as the possibility to enhance people's capacity to create connections and impart identity, are therefore opposites of danger and opportunity in AI research.

Foerst has attempted to establish a dialogue between theology and other structured fields of inquiry, following Tillich's paradigm.

Despite being highly welcomed in labs and classrooms, Foerst's work has been met with skepticism and pushback from some concerned that she is bringing counter-factual notions into the realm of science.

These concerns are crucial data for Foerst, who argues for a mutualistic approach in which AI researchers and theologians accept strongly held preconceptions about the universe and the human condition in order to have fruitful discussions.

Many valuable discoveries come from these dialogues, according to Foerst's study, as long as the parties have the humility to admit that neither side has a perfect grasp of the universe or human existence.

Foerst's work on AI is marked by humility, as she claims that researchers are startled by the vast complexity of the human person while seeking to duplicate human cognition, function, and form in the figure of the robot.

The way people are socially rooted, socially conditioned, and socially accountable adds to the complexity of any particular person.

Because human beings' embedded complexity is intrinsically physical, Foerst emphasizes the significance of an embodied approach to AI.

Foerst explored this embodied technique while at MIT, where having a physical body capable of interaction is essential for robotic research and development.

When addressing the evolution of artificial intelligence, Foerst emphasizes a clear difference between robots and computers in her work (AI).

Robots have bodies, and those bodies are an important aspect of their learning and interaction abilities.

Although supercomputers can accomplish amazing analytic jobs and participate in certain forms of communication, they lack the ability to learn through experience and interact with others.

Foerst is dismissive of research that assumes intelligent computers may be created by re-creating the human brain.

Rather, she contends that bodies are an important part of intellect.

Foerst proposes for growing robots in a way similar to human child upbringing, in which robots are given opportunities to interact with and learn from the environment.

This process is costly and time-consuming, just as it is for human children, and Foerst reports that funding for creative and time-intensive AI research has vanished, replaced by results-driven and military-focused research that justifies itself through immediate applications, especially since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

Foerst's work incorporates a broad variety of sources, including religious texts, popular films and television programs, science fiction, and examples from the disciplines of philosophy and computer science.

Loneliness, according to Foerst, is a fundamental motivator for humans' desire of artificial life.

Both fictional imaginings of the construction of a mechanical companion species and con actual robotics and AI research are driven by feelings of alienation, which Foerst ties to the theological position of a lost contact with God.

Academic opponents of Foerst believe that she has replicated a paradigm initially proposed by German theologian and scholar Rudolph Otto in his book The Idea of the Holy (1917).

The heavenly experience, according to Otto, may be discovered in a moment of attraction and dread, which he refers to as the numinous.

Critics contend that Foerst used this concept when she claimed that humans sense attraction and dread in the figure of the robot.

~ Jai Krishna Ponnappan

You may also want to read more about Artificial Intelligence here.

See also: 

Embodiment, AI and; Nonhuman Rights and Personhood; Pathetic Fallacy; Robot Ethics; Spiritual Robots.

Further Reading:

Foerst, Anne. 2005. God in the Machine: What Robots Teach Us About Humanity and God. New York: Plume.

Geraci, Robert M. 2007. “Robots and the Sacred in Science Fiction: Theological Implications of Artificial Intelligence.” Zygon 42, no. 4 (December): 961–80.

Gerhart, Mary, and Allan Melvin Russell. 2004. “Cog Is to Us as We Are to God: A Response to Anne Foerst.” Zygon 33, no. 2: 263–69.

Groks Science Radio Show and Podcast with guest Anne Foerst. Audio available online at http://ia800303.us.archive.org/3/items/groks146/Groks122204_vbr.mp3. Transcript available at https://grokscience.wordpress.com/transcripts/anne-foerst/.

Reich, Helmut K. 2004. “Cog and God: A Response to Anne Foerst.” Zygon 33, no. 2: 255–62.

Artificial Intelligence - What Are Robot Caregivers?

 

Personal support robots, or caregiver robots, are meant to help individuals who, for a number of reasons, need assistive technology for long-term care, disability, or monitoring.

Although not widely used, caregiver robots are seen as useful in countries with rapidly rising older populations or in situations when a significant number of individuals are afflicted at the same time with a severe sickness.

Caregiver robots have elicited a wide variety of reactions, from terror to comfort.

As they attempt to eliminate the toil from caring rituals, some ethicists have claimed that robotics researchers misunderstand or underappreciate the role of compassionate caretakers.

The majority of caregiver robots are personal robots for use at home, however some are used in institutions including hospitals, nursing homes, and schools.

Some of them are geriatric care robots.

Others, dubbed "robot nannies," are meant to do childcare tasks.

Many have been dubbed "social robots." Interest in caregiving robots has risen in tandem with the world's aging population.

Japan has one of the largest percentage of old people in the world and is a pioneer in the creation of caregiver robots.

According to the United Nations, by 2050, one-third of the island nation's population would be 65 or older, much outnumbering the natural supply of nursing care employees.

The Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare of the nation initiated a pilot demonstration project in 2013 to bring bionic nursing robots into eldercare facilities.

By 2050, the number of eligible retirees in the United States will have doubled, and those beyond the age of 85 will have tripled.

In the same year, there will be 1.5 billion persons over the age of 65 all throughout the globe (United Nations 2019).

For a number of reasons, people are becoming more interested in caregiver robot technology.

The physical difficulties of caring for the elderly, infirm, and children are often mentioned as a driving force for the creation of assistive robots.

The caregiver position may be challenging, especially when the client has a severe or long-term illness such as Alzheimer's disease, dementia, or schizoid disorder.

A partial answer to family economic misery has also been proposed: caregiver robots.

Robots may one day be able to take the place of human relatives who must work.

They've also been suggested as a possible solution to nursing home and other care facility staffing shortages.

In addition to technological advancements, societal and cultural factors are driving the creation of caregiver robots.

Because of unfavorable attitudes of outsiders, robot caregivers are favored in Japan than overseas health-care employees.

The demand for independence and the dread of losing behavioral, emotional, and cognitive autonomy are often acknowledged by the elderly themselves.

In the literature, several robot caregiver functions have been recognized.

Some robots are thought to be capable of minimizing human carers' mundane work.

Others are better at more difficult jobs.

Intelligent service robots have been designed to help with feeding, cleaning of houses and bodies, and mobility support, all of which save time and effort (including lifting and turning).

Safety monitoring, data collecting, and surveillance are some of the other functions of these assistive technologies.

Clients with severe to profound impairments may benefit from robot carers for coaching and stimulation.

For patients who require frequent reminders to accomplish chores or take medication, these robots might be used as cognitive prosthesis or mobile memory aides.

These caregiver robots may also include telemedicine capabilities, allowing them to call doctors or nurses for routine or emergency consultations.

Robot caretakers have been offered as a source of social connection and companionship, which has sparked debate.

Although social robots have a human-like appearance, they are often interactive smart toys or artificial pets.

In Japan, robots are referred to as iyashi, a term that also refers to a style of anime and manga that focuses on emotional rehabilitation.

As huggable friends, Japanese children and adults may choose from a broad range of soft-tronic robots.

Matsushita Electric Industrial (MEI) created Wandakun, a fluffy koala bear-like robot, in the 1990s.

When petted, the bear wiggled, sang, and responded to touch with a few Japanese sentences.

Babyloid is a plush mechanical baby beluga whale created by Masayoshi Kano at Chukyo University to help elderly patients with despair.

Babyloid is only seventeen inches long, yet his eyes flicker and he "naps" when rocked.

When it is "glad," LED lights imbedded in its cheeks shine.

When the robot is in a bad mood, it may also drop blue LED tears.

Babyloid can produce almost a hundred distinct noises.

It is hardly a toy, since each one costs more than $1,000.

The infant harp seal is a replica.

The National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) in Japan invented Paro to provide consolation to individuals suffering from dementia, anxiety, or sadness.

Thirteen surface and whisker sensors, three microphones, two vision sensors, and seven actuators for the neck, fins, and eyelids are all included in the eighth-generation Paro.

When patients with dementia use Paro, the robot's developer, Taka nori Shibata of AIST's Intelligent System Research Institute, reports that they experience less hostility and roaming, as well as increased social interaction.

In the United States, Paro is classified as a Class II medical equipment, which puts it in the same danger category as electric wheelchairs and X-ray machines.

Taizou, a twenty-eight-inch robot that can duplicate the motions of thirty various workouts, was developed by AIST.

In Japan, Taizou is utilized to encourage older adults to exercise and keep in shape.

Sony Corporation's well-known AIBO is a robotic therapy dog as well as a very expensive toy.

In 2018, Sony's Life Care Design division started introducing a new generation of dog robots into the company's retirement homes.

The humanoid QRIO robot, AIBO's successor, has been suggested as a platform for basic childcare activities including interactive games and sing-alongs.

Palro, another Fujisoft robot for eldercare treatment, is already in use in over 1,000 senior citizen institutions.

Since its original release in 2010, its artificial intelligence software has been modified multiple times.

Both are used to alleviate dementia symptoms and provide enjoyment.

A bigger section of users of so-called partner-type personal robots has also been promoted by Japanese firms.

These robots are designed to encourage human-machine connection and to alleviate feelings of loneliness and mild melancholy.

In the late 1990s, NEC Corporation started developing the adorable PaPeRo (Partner-Type Personal Robot).

PaPeRo communications robots have the ability to look, listen, communicate, and move in a variety of ways.

Current versions include twin camera eyes that can recognize faces and are intended to allow family members who live in different houses keep an eye on one other.

PaPeRo's Childcare Version interacts with youngsters and serves as a temporary babysitter.

In 2005, Toyota debuted its humanoid Partner Robots family.

The company's robots are intended for a broad range of applications, including human assistance and rehabilitation, as well as socializing and innovation.

In 2012, Toyota launched the Partner Robots line with a customized Human Support Robot (HSR).

HSR robots are designed to help older adults maintain their independence.

In Japan, prototypes are currently being used in eldercare facilities and handicapped people's homes.

HSR robots are capable of picking up and retrieving things as well as avoiding obstacles.

They may also be controlled remotely by a human caregiver and offer internet access and communication.

Japanese roboticists are likewise taking a more focused approach to automated caring.

The RI-MAN robot, developed by the RIKEN Collaboration Center for Human-Interactive Robot Research, is an autonomous humanoid patient-lifting robot.

The forearms, upper arms, and torso of the robot are made of a soft sili cone skin layer and are equipped with touch sensors for safe lifting.

RI-MAN has odor detectors and can follow human faces.

RIBA (Robot for Interactive Body Assistance) is a second-generation RIKEN lifting robot that securely moves patients from bed to wheelchair while responding to simple voice instructions.

Capacitance-type tactile sensors made completely of rubber monitor patient weight in the RIBA-II.

RIKEN's current-generation hydraulic patient life-and-transfer equipment is called Robear.

The robot, which has the look of an anthropomorphic robotic bear, is lighter than its predecessors.

Toshiharu Mukai, RIKEN's inventor and lab leader, invented the lifting robots.

SECOM's MySpoon, Cyberdine's Hybrid Assistive Limb (HAL), and Panasonic's Resyone robotic care bed are examples of narrower approaches to caregiver robots in Japan.

MySpoon is a meal-assistance robot that allows customers to feed themselves using a joystick as a replacement for a human arm and eating utensil.

People with physical limitations may employ the Cyberdine Hybrid Assistive Limb (HAL), a powered robotic exoskeleton outfit.

For patients who would ordinarily need daily lift help, the Panasonic Resyone robotic care bed merges bed and wheelchair.

Projects to develop caregiver robots are also ongoing in Australia and New Zealand.

The Australian Research Council's Centre of Excellence for Autonomous Systems (CAS) was established in the early 2000s as a collaboration between the University of Technology Sydney, the University of Sydney, and the University of New South Wales.

The center's mission was to better understand and develop robotics in order to promote the widespread and ubiquitous use of autonomous systems in society.

The work of CAS has now been separated and placed on an independent footing at the University of Technology Sydney's Centre for Autonomous Systems and the University of Sydney's Australian Centre for Field Robotics.

Bruce Mac Donald of the University of Auckland is leading the creation of Healthbot, a socially assistive robot.

Healthbot is a mobile health robot that reminds seniors to take their meds, check vitals and monitor their physical condition, and call for aid in an emergency.

In the European Union, a number of caregiver robots are being developed.

The GiraffPlus (Giraff+) project, which was just finished at rebro University in Sweden, intends to develop an intelligent system for monitoring the blood pressure, temperature, and movements of elderly individuals at home (to detect falls and other health emergencies).

Giraff may also be utilized as a telepresence robot for virtual visits with family members and health care providers.

The robot is roughly five and a half feet tall and has basic controls as well as a night-vision camera.

The European Mobiserv project's interdisciplinary, collaborative goal is to develop a robot that reminds elderly customers to take their prescriptions, consume meals, and keep active.

Mobiserv is part of a smart home ecosystem that includes sensors, optical sensors, and other automated devices.

Mobiserv is a mobile application that works with smart clothing that collects health-related data.

Mobiserv is a collaboration between Systema Technologies and nine European partners that represent seven different nations.

The EU CompanionAble Project, which involves fifteen institutions and is led by the University of Reading, aims to develop a transportable robotic companion to illustrate the benefits of information and communication technology in aged care.

In the early stages of dementia, the CompanionAble robot tries to solve emergency and security issues, offer cognitive stimulation and reminders, and call human caregiver support.

In a smart home scenario, CompanionAble also interacts with a range of sensors and devices.

The QuoVADis Project at Brova Hospital Paris, a public university hospital specializing in geriatrics, has a similar goal: to develop a robot for at-home care of cognitively challenged old persons.

The Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Engineering and Automation is still designing and manufacturing Care-O-Bots, which are modular robots.

It's designed for hospitals, hotels, and nursing homes.

With its long arms and rotating, bending hip joint, the Care-O-Bot 4 service robot can reach from the floor to a shelf.

The robot is intended to be regarded as friendly, helpful, courteous, and intelligent.

ROBOSWARM and IWARD, intelligent and programmable hospital robot swarms developed by the European Union, provide a fresh approach.

ROBOSWARM is a distributed agent cleaning system for hospitals.

Cleaning, patient monitoring and guiding, environmental monitoring, medicine distribution, and patient surveillance are all covered by the more flexible IWARD.

Because the AI systems incorporated in these systems display adaptive and self-organizing characteristics, multi-institutional partners determined that certifying that they would operate adequately under real-world conditions would be challenging.

They also discovered that onlookers sometimes questioned the robots' motions, asking whether they were doing the proper tasks.

The Ludwig humanoid robot, developed at the University of Toronto, is intended to assist caretakers in dealing with aging-related issues in their clients.

The robot converses with elderly people suffering from dementia or Alzheimer's disease.

Goldie Nejat, AGE-WELL Investigator and Canada Research Chair in Robots for Society and Director of the University of Toronto's Institute for Robots and Mechatronics, is employing robotics technology to assist individuals by guiding them through ordinary everyday chores.

Brian, the university's robot, is sociable and reacts to emotional human interaction.

HomeLab is creating assistive robots for use in health-care delivery at the Toronto Rehabilitation Institute (iDAPT), Canada's biggest academic rehabilitation research facility.

Ed the Robot, created by HomeLab, is a low-cost robot built using the iRobot Create toolset.

The robot, like Brian, is designed to remind dementia sufferers of the appropriate steps to take while doing everyday tasks.

In the United States, caregiver robot technology is also on the rise.

The Acrotek Actron MentorBot surveillance and security robot, which was created in the early 2000s, could follow a human client using visual and aural cues, offer food or medicine reminders, inform family members about concerns, and call emergency services.

Bandit is a socially supportive robot created by Maja Matari of the Robotics and Autonomous Systems Center at the University of Southern California.

The robot is employed in therapeutic settings with patients who have had catastrophic injuries or strokes, as well as those who have aging disorders, autism, or who are obese.

Stroke sufferers react swiftly to imitation exercise movements produced by clever robots in rehabilitation sessions, according to the institute.

Robotic-assisted rehabilitative exercises were also effective in prompting and cueing tasks for youngsters with autism spectrum disorders.

Through the business Embodied Inc., Matari is currently attempting to bring cheap social robots to market.

Nursebots Flo and Pearl, assistive robots for the care of the elderly and infirm, were developed in collaboration between the University of Pittsburgh, Carnegie Mellon University, and the University of Michigan.

The National Science Foundation-funded Nursebot project created a platform for intelligent reminders, telepresence, data gathering and monitoring, mobile manipulation, and social engagement.

Today, Carnegie Mellon is home to the Quality of Life Technology (QoLT) Center, a National Science Foundation Engineering Research Center (ERC) whose objective is to use intelligent technologies to promote independence and improve the functional capabilities of the elderly and handicapped.

The transdisciplinary AgeLab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was founded in 1999 to aid in the development of marketable ideas and assistive technology for the aged.

Joe Coughlin, the creator and director of AgeLab, has concentrated on developing the technological requirements for conversational robots for senior care that have the difficult-to-define attribute of likeability.

Walter Dan Stiehl and associates in the Media Lab created The HuggableTM teddy bear robotic companion at MIT.

A video camera eye, 1,500 sensors, silent actuators, an inertial measurement unit, a speaker, and an internal personal computer with wireless networking capabilities are all included in the bear.

Virtual agents are used in other forms of caregiving technology.

Softbots are a term used to describe these agents.

The MIT Media Lab's CASPER affect management agent, created by Jonathan Klein, Youngme Moon, and Rosalind Picard in the early 2000s, is an example of a virtual agent designed to relieve unpleasant emotional states, notably impatience.

To reply to a user who is sharing their ideas and emotions with the computer, the human-computer interaction (HCI) agent employs text-only social-affective feedback mechanisms.

The MIT FITrack exercise advisor agent uses a browser-based client with a relational database and text-to-speech engine on the backend.

The goal of FITrack is to create an interactive simulation of a professional fitness trainer called Laura working with a client.

Amanda Sharkey and Noel Sharkey, computer scientists at the University of Sheffield, are often mentioned in studies on the ethics of caregiver robot technology.

The Shar keys are concerned about robotic carers and the loss of human dignity they may cause.

They claim that such technology has both advantages and disadvantages.

On the one hand, care provider robots have the potential to broaden the variety of options accessible to graying populations, and these features of technology should be promoted.

The technologies, on the other hand, might be used to mislead or deceive society's most vulnerable people, or to further isolate the elderly from frequent companionship and social engagement.

The Sharkeys point out that robotic caretakers may someday outperform humans in certain areas, such as when speed, power, or accuracy are required.

Robots might be trained to avoid or lessen eldercare abuse, impatience, or ineptitude, all of which are typical complaints among the elderly.

Indeed, if societal institutions for caregiver assistance are weak or defective, an ethical obligation to utilize caregiver robots may apply.

Robots, on the other hand, can not comprehend complicated human constructions like loyalty or adapt perfectly to the delicate, tailored demands of specific consumers.

"The old may find themselves in a barren world of machines, a world of automated care: a factory for the aged," the Sharkeys wrote if they don't plan ahead (Sharkey and Sharkey 2012, 282).

In her groundbreaking book Alone Together: Why We Expect More From Technology and Less From Each Other (2011), Sherry Turkle includes a chapter to caregiver robots.

She points out that researchers in robotics and artificial intelligence are driven by the need to make the elderly feel desired via their work, assuming that older folks are often lonely or abandoned.

In aging populations, it is true that attention and labor are in short supply.

Robots are used as a kind of entertainment.

They make everyday living and household routines easier and safer.

Turkle admits that robots never get tired and can even function from a neutral stance in customer interactions.

Humans, on the other hand, can have reasons that go against even the most basic or traditional norms of caring.

"One may argue that individuals can act as though they care," Turkle observes.

"A robot is unconcerned. As a result, a robot cannot act since it can only act" (Turkle 2011, 124).

Turkle, on the other hand, is a critical critic of caregiving technology.

Most importantly, caring conduct and caring feelings are often misconstrued.

In her opinion, interactions between people and robots do not constitute true dialogues.

They may even cause consternation among vulnerable and reliant groups.

The risk of privacy invasion from caregiver robot monitoring is significant, and automated help might potentially sabotage human experience and memory development.

The emergence of a generation of older folks and youngsters who prefer machines to intimate human ties poses a significant threat.

On suitable behaviors and manufactured compassion, several philosophers and ethicists have chimed in.

Human touch is very important in healing rituals, according to Sparrow and Sparrow (2006), robots may increase loss of control, and robot caring is false caregiving since robots are incapable of genuine concern.

Borenstein and Pearson (2011) and Van Wynsberghe (2013) believe that caregiver robots infringe on human dignity and senior rights, impeding freedom of choice.

Van Wynsberghe, in particular, advocates for value-sensitive robot designs that align with Joan Tronto's ethic of care, which includes attentiveness, responsibility, competence, and reciprocity, as well as broader concerns for respect, trust, empathy, and compassion, according to University of Minnesota professor Joan Tronto.

Vallor (2011) questioned the underlying assumptions of robot care by questioning the premise that caring for others is only a problem or a burden.

It's possible that excellent care is individualized to the individual, something that personable but mass-produced robots could fail to provide.

Robot caregiving will very certainly be frowned upon by many faiths and cultures.

By providing incorrect and unsuitable social connections, caregiver robots may potentially cause reactive attachment disorder in children.

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has defined rules for the creation of personal robots, but who is to blame when a robot is neglected? The courts are undecided, and robot caregiver legislation is still in its early stages.

According to Sharkey and Sharkey (2010), caregiver robots might be held accountable for breaches of privacy, injury caused by illegal constraint, misleading activities, psychological harm, and accountability failings.

Future robot ethical frameworks must prioritize the needs of patients above the wishes of caretakers.

In interviews with the elderly, Wu et al. (2010) discovered six themes connected to patient requirements.

Thirty people in their sixties and seventies agreed that assistive technology should initially aid them with simple, daily chores.

Other important needs included maintaining good health, stimulating memory and concentration, living alone "for as long as I wish without worrying my family circle" (Wu et al. 2010, 36), maintaining curiosity and growing interest in new activities, and communicating with relatives on a regular basis.

In popular culture, robot maids, nannies, and caregiver technologies are all prominent clichés.

Several early instances may be seen in the television series The Twilight Zone.

In "The Lateness of the Hour," a man develops a whole family of robot slaves (1960).

In "I Sing the Body Electric," Grandma is a robot babysitter (1962).

From the animated television series The Jetsons (1962–1963), Rosie the robotic maid is a notable character.

In the animated movie Wall-E (2008) and Big Hero 6 (2014), as well as the science fiction thriller I Am Mother, caregiver robots are a central narrative component (2019).

They're also commonly seen in manga and anime.

Roujin Z (1991), Kurogane Communication (1997), and The Umbrella Academy are just a few examples (2019).

In popular culture, Jake Schreier's 2012 science fiction film Robot and Frank dramatizes the limits and potential of caregiver robot technology.

A gruff former jewel thief with deteriorating mental health seeks to make his robotic sidekick into a criminal accomplice in the film.

The film delves into a number of ethical concerns including not just the care of the elderly, but also the rights of robots in slavery.

"We are psychologically evolved not merely to nurture what we love, but to love what we nurture," says MIT social scientist Sherry Turkle (Turkle 2011, 11).

~ Jai Krishna Ponnappan

You may also want to read more about Artificial Intelligence here.

See also: 

Ishiguro, Hiroshi; Robot Ethics; Turkle, Sherry.

Further Reading

Borenstein, Jason, and Yvette Pearson. 2011. “Robot Caregivers: Ethical Issues across the Human Lifespan.” In Robot Ethics: The Ethical and Social Implications ofRobotics, edited by Patrick Lin, Keith Abney, and George A. Bekey, 251–65. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Sharkey, Noel, and Amanda Sharkey. 2010. “The Crying Shame of Robot Nannies: An Ethical Appraisal.” Interaction Studies 11, no. 2 (January): 161–90.

Sharkey, Noel, and Amanda Sharkey. 2012. “The Eldercare Factory.” Gerontology 58, no. 3: 282–88.

Sparrow, Robert, and Linda Sparrow. 2006 “In the Hands of Machines? The Future of Aged Care.” Minds and Machines 16, no. 2 (May): 141–61.

Turkle, Sherry. 2011. Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other. New York: Basic Books.

United Nations. 2019. World Population Ageing Highlights. New York: Department of Economic and Social Affairs. Population Division.

Vallor, Shannon. 2011. “Carebots and Caregivers: Sustaining the Ethical Ideal of Care in the Twenty-First Century.” Philosophy & Technology 24, no. 3 (September): 251–68.

Van Wynsberghe, Aimee. 2013. “Designing Robots for Care: Care Centered Value Sensitive Design.” Science and Engineering Ethics 19, no. 2 (June): 407–33.

Wu, Ya-Huei, Véronique Faucounau, Mélodie Boulay, Marina Maestrutti, and Anne Sophie Rigaud. 2010. “Robotic Agents for Supporting Community-Dwelling Elderly People with Memory Complaints: Perceived Needs and Preferences.” Health Informatics Journal 17, no. 1: 33–40.