IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - March 2018 - 34

Othering works to the detriment of humanity, as it can
create practices that are based on stereotypes. In the
history of humanity, racial prejudice, sexism, and antidisability are all ways in which people have been othered
on the basis of their racial origin, sex, or abilities.
In the field of autism, the scientific community's
attempts to produce robots that could help children
with autism and contribute to well-established therapeutic goals will not be helped by making analogies
between children with autism and robots. If we chart
the rise in using humanoid robots for children with
autism we find analogies between children with autism
and robots are present in the earliest works. Take for
instance the pioneering work of Brian Scassellati
whose early papers include Theory of Mind for a
Humanoid Robot [34] and Implementing Models of
Autism with a Humanoid Robot [35]. A more recent
example is by a cognitive scientist who in a recent
paper made the claim
"Almost all robots are autistic; very few humans
are" [46].
The paper is also title "Curing Robot Autism: A challenge." The author goes on to write "'Robots and other
synthetic agents (e.g., virtual humans) are generally
Autistic" [46]. If robots are autists, then are autists
robots? What exactly is this language implying about
human beings with autism? The analogies between an
autistic mind or state is taken into robotics from the
field of development psychology and autism studies,
particularly the model of autism developed by Simon
Baron-Cohen. Baron-Cohen also coined the term "mindblind" in his book Mindblindess: An Essay on Autism
and Theory of Mind [3]. If an autistic child is mindblind,
so figured Scassellati, a robot, which has no mind, is
also mindblind. This particular way of understanding
autism has been criticized by many researchers including Runswick-Cole, Mallett, and Timimi [37], Timimi and
McCabe [24], [25], and Collins [9], who argue against
biomedical models (or the mental disorder models) setting up the Critical Autism Network. These researchers
argue these deficit models fail to take into account the
varied complexity, and real-lived life experiences of people with autism and the importance of their social relationships. This theme was confirmed in our interviews
and during our meetings with adults with Asperger's.
Adults with Asperger's described their hurt at being
socially excluded from peer networks during their
school years. Rather than prefer objects to people,
many had little support, and autism awareness was
often lacking in their schools. Autism awareness is
important as it can help people around those with
autism to be sensitive to the behaviors of autistic people

Specialist help and support for the autistic person, combined with more autism awareness in the school or
work environment, reduces feelings of social isolation
or distress [33].

Including Stakeholder Perspectives in Ethics
Ethics is a school of philosophy devoted to exploring
what is right or wrong and developing reasons for judgments informed by ideas of what it means to be human
and what it means to be part of a social community.
The ethics approach we use in the DREAM project problematizes the "top-down" model of the "expert" (philosopher, psychiatrist, etc.,) who knows the "truth" about
the world, and comes to reason about the truth outside
of relations with others. DREAM ethics is built around
the involvement of multiple stakeholders who hold different amounts of power, and are embedded in different
knowledge systems and practices [8], [38].
We refer to the social model of disability and the difference model that explore how bio-medical critiques
and practices, and social norms about "ability" and "disability" impact on the life experiences of children and
adults with autism [15], [27]. In its most extreme form,
the social model of disability suggests that all disability
is a social construct and there is no ability or disability
but normative models that privilege certain abilities over
others, organize society and normal functioning. We use
a developmental biopsychosocial model (SOCIAL) which
"incorporates the biological underpinnings and sociocognitive skills that underlie social function (attention/
executive function, communication, socio-emotional
skills), as well as the internal and external (environmental) factors that mediate these skills" [5], recognizing the
real difficulties children and adults with autism experience. We believe that autism spectrum conditions awareness can positively promote understanding of the
difficulties experienced by a child or adult with autism,
and the family of the person. However, in our ethics we
include the multiplicity of perspectives to give a fuller
picture of what it might be like to have autism, to be a
parent of a child with autism, or to be someone in the
robotics field wanting to develop socially beneficial
robotic systems.
The ethics we employ in DREAM has to take into
account the multiple perspectives of the consortium
team, as well as parents of children with autism, adults
with Asperger's, government and trusted healthcare providers, healthcare specialists, politicians, educationalists,
and members of the general public. By taking the views
of different stakeholders into account, we dispense with
the top-down model and instead give credence and value
to the experiences of all actors. This is pertinent because
all lived experiences need to be taken into account and
given some value in order to understand people's lived

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march 2018

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