In this study, we investigated people's relationships with AIBO, a robotic pet, through 6,438 spontaneous postings in online AIBO discussion forums. Results showed that AIBO psychologically engaged this group of participants, particularly by drawing forth conceptions of technological essences (75%), life-like essences (49%), mental states (60%), and social rapport (59%). However, participants seldom attributed moral standing to AIBO (e.g., that AIBO deserves respect, has rights, or can be held morally accountable for action). Our discussion focuses on how robotic pets (now and in the future) may (a) challenge traditional boundaries (e.g. between who or what can possess feelings), (b) extend our conceptions of self, companionship, and community, and (c) begin to replace interactions with live pets. We also discuss a concern that people in general, and children in particular, may fall prey to accepting robotic pets without the moral responsibilities (and moral developmental outcomes) that real, reciprocal companionship and cooperation involves. This research contributes to a growing literature on the human-robotic relationship.

Value Sensitive Design is a theoretically grounded approach to the design of technology that accounts for human values in a principled and comprehensive manner throughout the design process. It employs an integrative and iterative tripartite methodology, consisting of conceptual, empirical, and technical investigations. We explicate Value Sensitive Design by drawing on three case studies. The first study concerns information and control of web browser cookies, implicating the value of informed consent. The second study concerns using high-definition plasma displays in an office environment to provide a “window ” to the outside world, implicating the values of physical and psychological well-being and privacy in public spaces. The third study concerns an integrated land use, transportation, and environmental simulation system to support public deliberation and debate on major land use and transportation decisions, implicating the values of fairness, accountability, and support for the democratic process, as well as a highly diverse range of values that might be held by different stakeholders, such as environmental sustainability, opportunities for business expansion, or walkable neighborhoods. We conclude with direct and practical suggestions for how to engage in Value

Abstract — In this paper, we move toward offering psychological benchmarks by which to measure success in building increasingly human-like robots. By psychological benchmarks we mean categories of interaction that capture conceptually fundamental aspects of human life, specified abstractly enough so as to resist their identity as a mere psychological instrument, but capable of being translated into testable empirical propositions. Six possible benchmarks are considered: autonomy, imitation, intrinsic moral value, moral accountability, privacy, and reciprocity. Finally, we discuss how getting the right group of benchmarks in human-robot interaction will, in future years, help inform on the foundational question of what constitutes essential features of being human.

Designers of children’s technology are often more interested in user motivation than those who design systems for adults. Since children’s technology often has aims such as education or practice, keeping the user engaged and interested is an important objective. The Media Equation – the idea that people respond socially to computers – shows potential for improving engagement and motivation. Studies have shown that people are more positive about both themselves and the computer when software exhibits certain social characteristics. To explore the possible value of the Media Equation as a design concept for children’s software, we replicated two of the original Media Equation studies, concerning the effects of praise and team formation. Our results, however, were contrary to our expectations: we did not find evidence that children were significantly affected by social characteristics in software, and adults were influenced in only a few cases. These results raise questions about using the Media Equation as a design principle for children’s software.

As autonomous machines become more pervasive, situations will arise when human decision-makers will receive advice from both machines and other humans. When these instructions conflict, a new social situation is defined for which we have little precedent. The authors propose a model for investigating these situations. The model synthesizes research from several different fields, including machine autonomy, affect, initial trust, individual differences, and training. The model is explained, and a set of propositions is described. The model is used to analyze the case of an air collision in which machines and humans provided conflicting advice. The model is also applied to situations in which unmanned aerial vehicles and piloted aircraft seek to avoid collisions with each other. Ways of testing the model through human subject experiments are discussed.

Sensing affect raises critical privacy concerns, which are examined here using ethical theory, and with a study that illuminates the connection between ethical theory and privacy. We take the perspective that affect sensing systems encode a designer's ethical and moral decisions: which emotions will be recognized, who can access recognition results, and what use is made of recognized emotions. Previous work on privacy has argued that users want feedback and control over such ethical choices. In response, we develop ethical contracts from the theory of contractualism, which grounds moral decisions on mutual agreement. Current findings indicate that users report significantly more respect for privacy in systems with an ethical contract when compared to a control.

As robots gain abilities that exceed those of humans a particularly interesting possibility arises. Namely, robots can trick or deceive humans without detection. Such deceptive uses of robotics lead to interesting questions concerning fault, responsibility,

A reusable agent-based generic model is presented for a specific class of Ambient Intelligence applications: those cases addressing human wellbeing and functioning from a human-like understanding. The model incorporates ontologies, knowledge and dynamic models from human-directed sciences such as psychology, social science, neuroscience and biomedical sciences. The model has been formally specified, and it is shown how for specific applications it can be instantiated by application-specific elements, thus providing an executable specification that can be used for prototyping. Moreover, it is shown how dynamic properties can be formally specified and verified against generated traces.

Postgraduate degree from the University of Saskatchewan, I agree that the Libraries of this University may make it freely available for inspection. I further agree that permission for copying of this thesis in any manner, in whole or in part, for scholarly purposes may be granted by the professor or professors who supervised my thesis work or, in their absence, by the Head of the Department or the Dean of the College in which my thesis work was done. It is understood that any copying or publication or use of this thesis or parts thereof for financial gain shall not be allowed without my written permission. It is also understood that due recognition shall be given to me and to the University of Saskatchewan in any scholarly use which may be made of any material in my thesis.

This paper surveys some of the main ethical issues pertaining to robotics that have been discussed in the literature. We start with the idea of responsibility ascription that arises when an autonomous system malfunctions or harms people. Next, we discuss various ethical issues emerging in two sets of robotic applications: service robots that peacefully interact with humans and lethal robots created to fight in battlefields. Then, we provide a short overview of machine ethics, a new research trend that aims at designing and implementing artificial systems with “morally ” acceptable behavior. We then highlight resulting gaps in legislation, and discuss the need for guidelines to regulate the creation and deployment of such autonomous systems. Often, when designing such systems, the benefits tend to overshadow partly unknown but potentially large negative consequences.