By Patricia Sazatornil Alonso<\/p>\n\n
When we haven\u2019t yet resolved our ethical relationship with other sentient beings, a new player arrives on the social scene: AI care robots. Initially, it might seem that a robot can in no way be part of a social relationship or alter our sense of human reality, however, what happens when this robot has the capacity for moral choice, autonomy, and replaces a function as essentially human as caregiving and companionship? In this potential scenario, what kind of consequences in the personal-interpersonal and social realm should we consider?<\/p>\n\n
First, we must question the very meaning of care, what does it mean today to take care of someone? What implications of interdependence does it entail? Can a robot have the skills needed for care tasks? Then, we must speculate about the positive and negative effects, and from there, work to create the conditions conducive to the chosen results. This point is crucial in the AI robots incorporations strategy.<\/p>\n\n
Regarding the personal-interpersonal realm, positive effects may include a relief from the physical labor associated with dependency. This applies not only to the dependent person but also to the family as our society demands significant personal time beyond family care, so not having to invest time in burdensome tasks could allow the family to focus on emotional matters. At this point, a key question arises: do these \u201cburdensome\u201d tasks, like cleaning, constitute a part of care, or is it just emotional companionship? What might happen if we start delegating all of this to a robot?<\/p>\n\n
This leads us to negative effects. In a society of productivity and fragmented families, caring for dependants is becoming a real burden for caregivers. Is AI the solution? We need to reflect on whether eliminating some of the mentioned tasks from the care functions could lead to a progressive interpersonal disconnection and a potential pseudo-abandonment of the dependent person on one side, and the creation of an emotional bond towards the robot that could distort the emotional world. As the civil code of robotics acknowledges: \u201cArt.32 (…) human contact is one of the fundamental aspects of caring for people; it considers that replacing the human factor with robots could dehumanize the provision of care (…)\u201d.<\/p>\n\n
What emotional changes can occur in someone who only receives attention from a robot? If care is an expression of love for us as social beings, the rise of care robots replacing these tasks could erode our interpersonal sociability. Moreover, this \u201cautomation of attention\u201d could lead to a progressive desensitization towards the needs of others, and the paradox of robots being more human, symbolically, than human themselves. Therefore, we must consider to what extent we delegate the task of assisting people to AI.<\/p>\n\n
On a social level, what about the possibility of a progressive invisibilization of dependence and vulnerability? According to Buddhism, it was precisely the encounter with vulnerability, that made Gautama begin his quest for liberation. What effects for the growth of compassion can we envision if we conceal the human vulnerability? The answers to these questions have direct socio-political implications. It places the debate on dependency policies on one side and on what we will delegate to AI regarding care, and what are the limits on the other.<\/p>\n\n
One of the principles of robotics is that its systems should be designed under human-compatible values of dignity, rights, freedom, and cultural diversity, but if we want care robots to have in their \u201csoftware\u201d algorithms of human dignity, perhaps we first need to debate whether it is dignified for a robot to perform this task. We must consider whether delegating the care of our loved ones to a robot is, in itself, a devaluation of human dignity. Caring is transforming and we must be responsible about to what extent we want to introduce AI elements into this network of interdependence as we are talking about particularly vulnerable humans.<\/p>\n\n
Patricia Sazatornil Alonso (1983). Psychology Degree – Clinical Intervention Specialist. University Master\u2019s Degree in Philosophy for Contemporary Challenges with an Honor Mention for the Master\u2019s Thesis on Ethics and Global Justice, published by the Institutional Repository of the Open University of Catalonia. Independent researcher, currently working in the field of the crossed knowledge between Western and Buddhist psychology. Member of Sangha Activa Buddhist Community.<\/p>\n\n
This article first appeared in EBU Magazine #12 \u2013 Artificial Intelligence<\/a> (Spring 2024). 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