As robots become a growing presence in areas such as healthcare, there has been an increased emphasis on our ability to form the kind of bonds we so often form with caregivers. New research from the University of Sheffield explores human-robot relationships to understand if we can ever be friends with a robot.
Friendship is something commonly defined as requiring mutual goodwill, shared values, and admiration. It’s a partnership of equals and is therefore not something that a robot can replicate very easily. Even as chatbots and conversational technology improve, there is still a long way to go before they can be regarded as conversational equals.
Of course, there are also, less perfect, forms of friendship that have more pleasurable or utilitarian bases to them, and the paper suggests that in many cases, these needs are capable of being met by a robot.
Robot companionship
Indeed, among ethicists, the question is not even so much if we can form friendships with robots, but whether we should even strive to. To them, robots are only capable of simulating emotions, and so any relationship we form with them is always going to be less fulfilling than those with other humans.
Of course, that’s not to say that bonds aren’t being formed between us and machines, and the paper how those bonds are formed, both between man and machine and even between humans. They note that while it’s tempting to put human relationships on a pedestal, there are in fact many that are sub-optimal.
For instance, there is a huge range of human-to-human relationships, from those between parents and children all the way to those between celebrity heroes. Seldom are these relationships equal and they nearly all evolve over time.
Unfair expectations
As such, our expectations of robot companionship are perhaps unfairly ambitious, as most human relationships fail to live up to them either. We also know that social interaction is something that’s rewarding in its own right, so if robots provide even tangential social interaction it could be better than nothing.
Nonetheless, the paper outlines some of the risks associated with turning to robots for companionship, with these risks especially prominent if robots are used to replace humans or if no choice is given. This is particularly so in care settings, for instance.
While these concerns are important, however, the researchers urge us not to view them as inevitabilities, with many robot encounters used to scaffold social interactions with others and actually improve our ability to engage with other humans.
It seems inevitable that robots will become companions in some way, shape, or form, even if they don’t ultimately meet some of the loftier aspirations for friendship, which shouldn’t be taken to mean that they can’t nonetheless be useful.
