IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - March 2020 - 53

The human response to the robot must be predictable and repeatable. A particular stimulus must produce a particular response, perhaps through training.
In other words, we must adopt a behaviorist view of
humans. The variety of responses of the robot must
match those of the human if the robot is to replace a
human in a social relationship. If there is no match, no
requisite variety, then the human/robot relationship
may become unpredictable and break down.
A key motivation for the development of social
robots is human replacement. The increased need for
caregivers for the elderly and the looming shortage of
caregivers may be alleviated by robots. In the DREAM
project, a key motivation is using robots as an antidote
to the anticipated shortage of trained therapists.
Robots are increasingly seen as replacements for service workers.
However, in order to deploy robots in social care it
will be necessary to reduce the variety of human
behavior to match that of the robot (See [1]). This can
be done either by constraining and managing the
behavior of the human such that the range of permitted
behavioral responses matches the variety generated by
the robot, or by selecting a target population of humans
whose behavioral competence is perceived to be limited such that it can be accommodated by the robot.
We have to reduce our perception of the human to a
machine, a computer equivalent where the brain
replaces the computer chip and is programmed
through neural connections. Thus we must dehumanize
the human to match the robot; at the very least the
human must be a social machine whose behavior is
both reducible and programmable.

Is the Autistic Child a Robot?
A reductionist, materialist perception of humans may
drive the push towards using robots in autism therapy.
Richardson et al. [20] state that the DREAM project
depends on a perception of Autistic Spectrum Disorder
(ASD) as a lack of empathy and emotionality. ASD children are simply more rational and logical. The ASD
brain is more rational. Therefore the ASD brain more
closely matches characterization as a robot. The robot
is autistic and the ASD child behaves robotically.
Such a perception leads to a view that the child will
prefer the robot: social interaction can be replaced by
robot interactions, thus providing automated therapy
using less time and resources.
The robots in the DREAM project automate a therapy
known as Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA). ABA has
been in use since the 1960s and involves conditioning
the child through repetition and reward to repeat certain socially acceptable behaviors. ABA is grounded
in radical behaviorism [7] and involves operant
MARCH 2020

∕

Social robotics focuses too much
on the robot and not enough on
the human.

conditioning. ABA involves the child learning behavior
from an early age by repetition for 30 - 40 hours a
week. In ABA therapy the child is programmed to exhibit external behavior that makes him look like everybody
else, elicited through reward of chocolate or punishments of electric shocks. As if the child is a puppet, the
child's external behavior imitates social expectation.
But nothing is done to manage or understand the
child's internal emotions, or actual brain differences in
autism. The ABA practice may be more for the external
stakeholder's benefit than the child's. Lovaas, the
founder of ABA, viewed the autistic child as a person in
the physical sense, a body, but not a person in the psychological sense [4].
This effective dehumanization of the autistic child
leads to a characterization suitable for robot automation where the child is seated in front of the robot and
required to endlessly repeat behaviors to try to satisfy
the demands of the robot, a situation that can only provoke anxiety. The child is effectively manipulated by the
robot. I would suggest such treatment of the child is
unethical and may actually be triggering post-traumatic
stress syndrome.
As a robot therapy, the DREAM project depended on
a behaviorist diagnosis and treatment. For the autistic
child this was just plain wrong.

The Autistic Mind
Far from lacking in empathy and emotions, the experience of autism is more one of a flooding of the emotions and overstimulation from more sensory input
than the child can manage [17]. The autistic child is no
more rational than a normal child; rather he lacks the
skills and brain pathways to manage the emotional and
sensory input that a normal child would be able to
comfortably process [17].
Autistic children feel their own emotions and those
of others strongly, but the wiring between the emotional and cognitive parts of the brain is weak. Emotions are hard to label, difficult to source, and
extremely difficult to calm [3], [6]. This leads to anxiety, panic, and a fight or flight response. Indeed the
autistic child is the opposite of robotic. Overwhelmed
by human emotion, he tries to shut down and manage
his brain activity [13].

IEEE TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY MAGAZINE

IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - March 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - March 2020