Comments on: Watch out Baby Boomers…for Robots! http://kenan.ethics.duke.edu/teamkenan/watch-out-baby-boomers-for-robots/ Fri, 29 Mar 2013 15:09:55 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.6 By: Eddie http://kenan.ethics.duke.edu/teamkenan/watch-out-baby-boomers-for-robots/#comment-11 Eddie Thu, 10 Feb 2011 23:59:23 +0000 http://devilsdilemma.wordpress.com/?p=246#comment-11 This somewhat reminds me of a short story by Anton Chekhov titled “Misery”, in which a carriage driver ends up telling his horse about his son’s death because nobody else would listen to him. Is that more or less weird than the elderly/robots case?

It seems that we’re less comfortable with robots, even if they are programmed to have language skills, to hug, etc., than we are with animals who cannot speak but are somehow more… “organic,” more “natural”?

On the other end of the natural-artificial spectrum, we don’t seem to think that TV/internet/etc are replacing humans, but, as Chris MacDonald points out, it’s not too far-fetched to think that they are. But when we try to make our “appliances” more human-like, some people start to get uneasy.

This is not to say that the elderly should accept robotic or animal replacements for human contact, but it’s interesting to consider our ideas of “human” and “natural” as we brace ourselves for the rise of the (loving) robots.

]]> By: Chris MacDonald http://kenan.ethics.duke.edu/teamkenan/watch-out-baby-boomers-for-robots/#comment-10 Chris MacDonald Thu, 10 Feb 2011 16:10:19 +0000 http://devilsdilemma.wordpress.com/?p=246#comment-10 Interesting!
When you ask “will we allow robots to teach our kids?”, it’s worth thinking about the extent to which we already allow a technology — TV — to do a lot of that. Maybe a robot — something programmable, interactive, tactile, etc. — would be better?

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