Technology Takeove

Turkle, Sherry. “Can You Hear Me Now?.” Forbes Magazine. Richard Karlgaard, 7 May 2007. Web. 25 April 2010. <http://www.forbes.com/free_forbes/2007/0507/176.html>

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The more connected we are through technology, the more disconnected we are as humans. Dr. Sherry Turkle, Professor at MIT, lists five of her deepest concerns about the effects of technology on humanity. As a result of computer programs like "Second Life", people can choose to live virtual lives in an alternate reality, resulting in an altered and unreal sense of self. Secondly, because they have such easy access to methods of communication, people are losing the ability to be patient and take their time. As one Blackberry user put it,"I don't have enough time alone with my mind." Thirdly, because teenagers always have a friend or a parent just a text or cell phone call away, they never have to cope with problems or emotions on their own, think them through, and deal with them independently. According to Turkle, adolescence should be a time of self-reflection that many of today's youth are not experiencing. Fourthly, with the existence of so many social networks, many people do not regard privacy as something to be valued. People do not seem to care who knows the details of their daily lives.Turkle is concerned that this mindset could lead to the justification of the invasion of privacy. Finally, Turkle is concerned about what she calls "split attention." Traditionally, most communication was done face-to-face or with a real person over the phone. Today, people talk to machines, leaving messages, buying tickets, purchasing clothing, ordering food, paying bills, etc. In Japan, robots are used extensively as companions for the elderly. One woman said she preferred the robot to a real dog because it won't "do dangerous things, betray you ...or die." People could begin to feel more comfortable dealing with machines than with other humans.

As one considers whether social robots should be used in therapy, it is wise to look at the bigger picture and take into account the concerns that Turkle, a professor of social sciences and technology at MIT, expresses in her article about the impact of social technology in general. The availability of so much technology in our culture may be robbing us of some of the qualities that enrich our lives as humans, such as patience, self-reflection, contemplation, vulnerability, and human attachments. Because there are obvious immediate benefits to the use of social robots in a therapeutic setting, it might be easy to lose sight of what those benefits might be costing the patient and society as a whole. Technological advances happen very quickly as one can see from the telephone industry. The same thing will probably happen in the field of robotics. As these advances occur, it will be important for people to be aware of the ethical and moral issues that will arise as a result and to make responsible decisions. In her article for Forbes, "Can You Hear Me Now?", Turkle makes a good point in a comment regarding the use of robots as companions for the elderly, "Might such robotic arrangements even benefit the elderly and their children in the short run in a feel-good sense but be bad for us in our lives as moral beings? The answer does not depend on what computers can do today or what they are likely to be able to do in the future. It hangs on the question of what we will be like, what kind of people we are becoming as we develop very intimate relationships with our machines."

Robot Companionship: Becoming Emotionally Vulnerable to a Machine

Kageyama, Yuri. “Robots Offer Devotion, No Strings Attached.” The Japan Times. The Japan Times Ltd., 23 April 2004. Web. 21 April 2010 <http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20040423b4.html>.

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In his commentary, Yuri Kageyama discusses the use of robots as companions for patients with dementia and other disabilities. According to him, the ideal results would be "huge savings in medical costs, a reduced burden on families and caretakers, and better health for old and sick people." He quotes Russell Bodoff, executive director at the Center For Aging Services Technologies in Washington, "If you look 30 years out, we have what I call a global crisis in front of us, that we will have many more aging people than we could ever deal with." Toshiyo Tamura, professor at the Insitute for Longevity Services, adds to the argument by saying that using robots in therapy is better than using animals, stating that "robots are more sanitary, they don't bite or cause allergies, and there is no need to feed them anything more than power." However, Kageyama points out that the idea of children and older people becoming emotionally attached to machines bothers many people. After citing several examples of successful use of robots, Yuri raises important questions about the risks. He relates one instance where NEC Technologies Systems lent a robot to a family for research. When the robot had to be removed temporarily for an upgrade, the school-aged child in the family cried so much that the family refused to accept the robot again. Kageyama sums up his reservations by quoting John Jordan, principle at the consulting company, Cap Gemini, as saying, "Humans are very good at attributing emotions to things that are not people. Many, many moral questions will arise.'

Yuri Kageyama's commentary is credible because he quotes several experts in the field of interactive robotics. He provides informed arguments on both sides of the controversial issue surrounding the use of robots as companions. While it is evident from some examples Kageyama gives that interactive robots meet a very real need for many sick and elderly patients, it is also evident that there are drawbacks and serious risks to human-robot relationships. For those contemplating the wisdom of the use of robots in therapy, Kageyama's article is worth reading. He spells out the benefits and the risks of human attachment to robots, with an emphasis on the risks. If patients can get extremely attached to today's robotic companions which are fairly basic, only able to do simple household chores, remind patients to take their medicine, and provide minimal companionship; one can only imagine how emotionally attached patients will get to robots in the future as the robots become more sophisticated and life-like. What effect will that kind of attachment have on the patient's emotional well-being? What effect will it have on the patient's ability to relate to other humans? How will the patient react when the robot breaks or is taken away? What effect will the availability of robots in general have on the rest of society? Should computer scientists develop something just because they have the technological ability to do so or should they take into account the unintended consequences? These are serious issues and Yuri Kageyama's article is thought provoking.

Robot Pet May Pose Psychological Risks

Hafner, Katie. “What Do You Mean, It's Just Like A Real Dog': As Robot Pets and Dolls Multiply, Children React in New Ways to Things That are Almost Alive.” The New York Times. The New York Times, 25 May 2000. Web. 20 April 2010 <http://partners.nytimes.com/library/tech/00/05/circuits/articles/25pets.html>.

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Children have always enjoyed playing pretend, but have always been able to recognize that toys, even toys like Chatty Cathy that repeat recorded phrases are not real. However, with the development of objects that seem to convincingly possess characteristics of living things, the distinction is getting harder for children to make. The first toy of that kind was Tamagotchi, a handheld virtual pet introduced in the mid 1990's that needed attention in order to "survive". Since then, more and more sophisticated toys have been introduced that seem to be "alive". Professor Sherry Turkle, a psychoanalyst who studies the sociology of science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), has concerns about the impact of these kinds of toys. In her piece in the New York Times, Katie Hafner, presents Professor Turkle's point of view and describes her concerns. Professor Turkle is concerned about what happens when the toy that the child has learned to relate to breaks. Turkle led a study in which she and her assistant Jennifer Audley observed children 5 to 10 years of age in an after school program as they played with Furbies. When asked if the Furbies were alive, the common response from the children was "not in a human or animal kind of way, but in a Furby kind of way." Turkle sent Furbies home with the children and ended up receiving "frantic calls" from parents whose children were distraught when the toys "died". She would rush over with a replacement, but without exception, the children were traumatized and refused to get attached to the new one. Another concern of Professor Turkle's is the impact that relating to these robotic objects can have on our identity as humans. While it is true that they can break, they can also seem immortal. On woman told Prof.Turkle that she preferred her $2500 Aibo robotic dog to a real dog because it cannot die and cause her grief. Turkle points out that "Mortality has traditionally defined the human condition. A shared sense of mortality has been the basis for feeling a commonality with other human beings.'' She said, ''a sense of going through the same life cycle, a sense of the preciousness of time and life, of its fragility. The possibilities of engaging emotionally with creatures that will not die, whose loss we will never need to face, presents potentially dramatic changes in our psychology.''

Professor Turkle's observations are very relevant to the discussion about whether the use of robots in therapy hinder or enhance the patient's ability to relate to other human beings. She is qualified to make observations because she is a psychoanalyst who specializes in the sociology of science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She also spent two years, along with her assistant, Jennifer Audley, studying the effects of developing relationships with "relational artifacts" on human beings. If her conclusions are correct, they should cause those who advocate the use of robots in therapy to consider the possible dangerous side effects. The fact that the children in her study were traumatized when their Furbies broke, indicates that patients might also be traumatized when their robots quit functioning, and, like the children, have a difficult time developing new attachments. On the other hand, other risks occur when people choose to form relationships with robots because they won't die like humans do. Turkle's observations about the effect of developing relationships with robots on one's identity as a human are especially profound. She indicates that if we lose the sense of mortality that we all share as humans, and lose the need to connect with others who will eventually die, the effect on our psychology would be dramatic. We could lose touch with the reality of the cycle of life and the comradary we share with other humans. There are other life lessons that we might be deprived of if we find relationships with objects who are programmed to react a certain way, instead of with individual people who are more unpredictable. It is important that we as humans including therapy patients learn to deal with disappointment when others let us down or learn to compromise when others have differing opinions. Professor Turkle's insights about the risks of relationships between humans and robots are worth considering when weighing the positive and negative aspects of using robots in therapy.