IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2017 - 65

the Care-O-Bot service robot from Germany is working
in a shopping complex in Bavaria. While geared towards
acting as an assistive robot to the elderly in care facilities, since October 2016, a Care-O-bot called "Paul" has
been greeting customers and showing them where in
the store, certain products can be found [30].
And it's not just in the relationship with seniors
where robots are emerging as assistants or care supporters. A child-sized robot produced by Softbank
robotics in France as the NAO robot, has gone mainstream, turning up in hospital pediatric units in Canada
and the United States as the MEDi robot [31]-[32]. The
MEDi is about 24 centimeters or two feet tall, and is
used as a therapy tool to ease anxiety in children as
they face a simple needle or a daunting medical procedure. The MEDi cannot think or plan, and doesn't have
artificial intelligence, but it can be programmed to interact with children to appear as though it's personally
responding to the child in a familiar way [31]-[32].
The MEDi instantly connects with children by using
the first name of the patient when they are introduced.
Maria Malcolm, a therapist who works with MEDi in Lethbridge Alberta, Canada says the robot captures a child's
attention in a non-threatening way that neither an adult
nor caregiver can replicate. "That four-to-10-year-old age
group is especially engaged. When he explains to them
what to do, they tend to listen and believe him" [31].
How that familiarity is achieved however, requires the
therapist to input the name of the child and instructions
for the robot to convey. The result is, the child patient
gets the impression the MEDi is spontaneously interacting with them [31].
The MEDi walks, kicks a ball, blinks it's eyes, and
talks, all while creating a diversion for children, according to Dr. Tanya Beran who created the MEDi softwear.
"When MEDi holds up a duck, and says can you
help me blow the dust of the duck, then the kids are
thinking they're just helping the robot, when in fact
the reason we want them to blow is to relax their muscles to slow down their breathing to help them focus
on something positive and playful, taking their mind
off the scary medical procedure that's about to take
place" [31].
Another evolving relationship between humans and
robots is that of a working robot, and its human colleagues. In a caregiving environment, it has been found
there is both a willingness and reluctance by some in the
workforce to embrace the opportunity to work alongside
a robotic caregiver [33]-[35]. A study examining attitudes
by care-staff towards working with an assistive robot
reflect an eagerness to have it take on rudimentary
"fetch and carry" duties such as delivering mail between
locations in the facility [33]. When evaluating the capabilities of Tangy the Bingo playing robot, care-staff
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suggested Tangy could be used in even more socially
engaging activities such as carrying on a conversation
with a resident [33, p. 1]. They even envisioned the robot
acting as a type of receptionist in the facility that could
be programmed to guide visitors to their destination,
similar to the Care-o-bot now working in a shopping mall
in Bavaria [30]-[33]. In that same study, however, carestaff saw the robot working in a support role, not in a
function that would replace their own jobs [33, p. 4].

"We are the slaves of our technical
improvement" Wiener wrote.

The loss of jobs, and "replacement of human contact" was also a concern raised in a study conducted in
Germany and Spain [35]. It looked at the attitudes of
care-staff and family caregivers towards in-home teleoperation service robots. While there was general support
to use a robotic system in emergency situations and
monitoring, there was opposition by professional caregivers for use of a remote caregiving system seeing the
robot as a "competitor" for their job [35].
While society now grapples with how to integrate
robots into our lives, the struggle to achieve just the
right formula for a functional yet peaceful co-existence is
longstanding. The impact of new technology emerged as
a unique topic of discussion in 1954 when renowned
mathematician and philosopher Norbert Wiener warned
that automation was the "equivalent to slave labor" displacing people from their jobs [36, p. 162]. At the same
time, he also cautioned of what he called the "worship of
progress," and how a rush to embrace technology could
result in unanticipated negative impacts on society [36,
p. 41]. "We are the slaves of our technical improvement"
Wiener wrote, adding that radical modification of technology-required society to "modify ourselves in order to
exist in this new environment" [36, p. 46].
"It's better than nothing," remarked one of the
seniors who watched the film about a robotic caregiver.
It sums up the sentiment and resignation that by
the time a person reaches an age where they need to
rely on supportive care, they won't likely have much
choice [7].
What my research showed is among participants,
who watched the fictitious film about the relationship
between an elderly woman and a tiny friendly robot,
there was great concern and worry about retaining the
ability to live independently, and maintain social relationships [7]. This points to the need for more research

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