Brian T. Gill

Robovie, You'll Have to Go into the Closet Now: Children's Social and Moral Relationships With a Humanoid Robot

Children will increasingly come of age with personified robots and potentially form social and even moral relationships with them. What will such relationships look like? To address this question, 90 children (9-, 12-, and 15-year-olds) initially interacted with a humanoid robot, Robovie, in 15-min sessions. Each session ended when an experimenter interrupted Robovies turn at a game and, against Robovies stated objections, put Robovie into a closet. Each child was then engaged in a 50-min structural-developmental interview. Results showed that during the interaction sessions, all of the children engaged in physical and verbal social behaviors with Robovie. The interview data showed that the majority of children believed that Robovie had mental states (e.g., was intelligent and had feelings) and was a social being (e.g., could be a friend, offer comfort, and be trusted with secrets). In terms of Robovies moral standing, children believed that Robovie deserved fair treatment and should not be harmed psychologically but did not believe that Robovie was entitled to its own liberty (Robovie could be bought and sold) or civil rights (in terms of voting rights and deserving compensation for work performed). Developmentally, while more than half the 15-year-olds conceptualized Robovie as a mental, social, and partly moral other, they did so to a lesser degree than the 9- and 12-year-olds. Discussion focuses on how (a) childrens social and moral relationships with future personified robots may well be substantial and meaningful and (b) personified robots of the future may emerge as a unique ontological category.

Robotic animals might aid in the social development of children with autism

This study investigated whether a robotic dog might aid in the social development of children with autism. Eleven children diagnosed with autism (ages 5-8) interacted with the robotic dog AIBO and, during a different period within the same experimental session, a simple mechanical toy dog (Kasha), which had no ability to detect or respond to its physical or social environment. Results showed that, in comparison to Kasha, the children spoke more words to AIBO, and more often engaged in three types of behavior with AIBO typical of children without autism: verbal engagement, reciprocal interaction, and authentic interaction. In addition, we found suggestive evidence (with p values ranging from .07 to .09) that the children interacted more with AIBO, and, while in the AIBO session, engaged in fewer autistic behaviors. Discussion focuses on why robotic animals might benefit children with autism.

The watcher and the watched: social judgments about privacy in a public place

Digitally capturing and displaying real-time images of people in public places raises concerns for individual privacy. Applying principles of Value Sensitive Design, we conducted two studies of peoples social judgments about this topic. In Study I, 750 people were surveyed as they walked through a public plaza that was being captured by a HDTV camera and displayed in real-time in the office of a building overlooking the plaza. In Study II, 120 individuals were interviewed about the same topic. Moreover, Study II controlled for whether the participant was a direct stakeholder of the technology (inside the office watching people on the HDTV large-plasma display window) or an indirect stakeholder (being watched in the public venue). Taking both studies together, results showed the following: (a) the majority of participants upheld some modicum of privacy in public; (b) peoples privacy judgments were not a one-dimensional construct, but often involved considerations based on physical harm, psychological wellbeing, and informed consent; and (c) more women than men expressed concerns about the installation, and, unlike the men, equally brought forward their concerns whether they were The Watcher or The Watched.

Do people hold a humanoid robot morally accountable for the harm it causes

Robots will increasingly take on roles in our social lives where they can cause humans harm. When robots do so, will people hold robots morally accountable? To investigate this question, 40 undergraduate students individually engaged in a 15-minute interaction with ATRs humanoid robot, Robovie. The interaction culminated in a situation where Robovie incorrectly assessed the participants performance in a game, and prevented the participant from winning a

Improving the safety of homeless young people with mobile phones: values, form and function

20 prize. Each participant was then interviewed in a 50-minute session. Results showed that all of the participants engaged socially with Robovie, and many of them conceptualized Robovie as having mental/emotional and social attributes. Sixty-five percent of the participants attributed some level of moral accountability to Robovie. Statistically, participants held Robovie less accountable than they would a human, but more accountable than they would a vending machine. Results are discussed in terms of the New Ontological Category Hypothesis and robotic warfare.

Sex, Lies, or Kittens? Investigating the Use of Snapchat’s Self-Destructing Messages

By their pervasiveness and by being worn on our bodies, mobile phones seem to have become intrinsic to safety. To examine this proposition, 43 participants, from four stakeholder groups (homeless young people, service providers, police officers, and community members), were asked to consider how homeless young people could use mobile phones to keep safe. Participants were asked to express their knowledge for place-based safety and to envision how mobile phones might be used to improve safety. Detailed analysis of the resulting data, which included value sketches, written value scenarios, and semi-structured discussion, led to specific design opportunities, related to values (e.g., supporting trust and desire to help others), function (e.g., documenting harms for future purposes), and form (e.g., leveraging social expectations for how mobile phones can be used to influence behavior). Together, these findings bound a design space for how mobile phones can be used to manage unsafe situations.

The new ontological category hypothesis in human-robot interaction

The privacy-related Snapchat smartphone application allows users to share time-limited photos or videos, which “disappear” after a specified number of seconds once opened. This paper describes the results of a user survey designed to help us understand how and why people use the Snapchat application. We surveyed 127 adult Snapchat users, finding that security is not a major concern for the majority of these respondents. We learn that most do not use Snapchat to send sensitive content (although up to 25 % may do so experimentally), that taking screenshots is not generally a violation of the sender’s trust but instead common and expected, that most respondents understand that messages can be recovered, and that security and privacy concerns are overshadowed by other influences on how and why respondents choose to use or not use Snapchat. Nevertheless, we find that a non-negligible fraction (though not a majority) of respondents have adapted or would adapt their behavior in response to understanding Snapchat’s (lack of) security properties, suggesting that there remains an opportunity for a more secure messaging application. We reflect on the implications of our findings for Snapchat and on the design of secure messaging applications.

Integrating on-demand fact-checking with public dialogue

This paper discusses converging evidence to support the hypothesis that personified robots and other embodied personified computational systems may represent a new ontological category, where ontology refers to basic categories of being, and ways of distinguishing them.

Moral and fearful affiliations with the animal world: children's conceptions of bats

Public dialogue plays a key role in democratic society. Such dialogue often contains factual claims, but participants and readers are left wondering what to believe, particularly when contributions to such dialogue come from a broad spectrum of the public. We explore the design space for introducing authoritative information into public dialogue, with the goal of supporting constructive rather than confrontational discourse. We also present a specific design and realization of an archetypal sociotechnical system of this kind, namely an on-demand fact-checking service integrated into a crowdsourced voters guide powered by deliberating citizens. The fact-checking service was co-designed with and staffed by professional librarians. Our evaluation examines the service from the perspectives of both users and librarians.

Personlig integritet: a comparative study of perceptions of privacy in public places in Sweden and the United States

ABSTRACT The purpose of this study was to extend knowledge on how children understand their affiliation with an animal that can evoke both fear and care: bats. We interviewed 120 children, evenly divided between four age groups (6–7, 9–10, 12–13, and 15–16 years) after each child had visited an exhibit at Brookfield Zoo that displays Rodrigues fruit bats. Results showed that in the same children a fear orientation toward bats existed alongside of a caring orientation. Children accorded bats the right to live free and to be wild. Yet most of the same children also said that zoos did not violate the rights of bats by keeping them in captivity. Discussion focuses on this seeming contradiction, and the resulting implications for the ecological mission of many zoos today.