This document discusses ethics in educational robotics. It outlines three key customer groups - educational staff, parents, and children - and their main concerns regarding social robots in educational settings. These include mortality salience, mate selection, violation of human norms, and conflicting perceptual cues. The document then proposes several ethical principles to address these concerns, such as informed consent, prevention of discrimination, and ensuring robots do not cause physical or psychological harm. It also describes procedures used in a kindergarten study like a first meeting protocol to introduce robots to children in an ethical way.

2. Human Ethics
0 Ethics, also known as moral philosophy, is a branch
of philosophy that involves systematizing, defending
and recommending concepts of right and wrong
conduct
0 In philosophy, ethics studies the moral behavior in
humans and how one should act.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethics

3. Our society in 10 years
NTT Technical Review

4. Distribution of robotics areas

5. Personal and Service Robots
0 Assistive Robotics
0 Socially Assistive Robotics

6. Therapeutic and Educational
Social Assistive Robotics
laboratory
Normally Developed
Cerebral
Palsy

8. Behavioral Uncanny Valley
Model
Behavior
Appearance
Assistive Robotics
Socially Assistive Robotics

9. Why human afraid of robots?
0 Mate selection
0 Mortality salience.
0 Violation of human norms
0 Conflicting perceptual cues
0 Religious definition of human identity

10. Lets Face It!!!
We are here
Behavior
Appearance
Assistive Robotics
Socially Assistive Robotics

11. Roboethics
We are here
Behavior
Appearance
Assistive Robotics
Socially Assistive Robotics
Roboethics
G r e a t Te c h n o l o g y
is not enough!!!

12. Roboethics, history
0 3 Laws of robotics, Asimov
1.
2.
3.
A robot may not injure a human being or, through
inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
A robot must obey orders given it by human beings
except where such orders would conflict with the First
Law.
A robot must protect its own existence as long as such
protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
0 Roboethics.org
0 First International Symposium on Roboethics Sanremo,
Italy, 30th - 31rd January 2004
0 Simposiume each year in ICRA conference

13. Ethics for Educational
Social Robotics, WHY?
0 Practice
0 It took as YEAR to find kindergarten to perform
experiments!!!
0 It took as 3 YEARS to get permeation from Israeli
Ministry of Education to enter kindergarten
0 Law certificate from European Community was not enough
0 Finally we got a permeation for set of 4 experiments
0 We submitted more then 20 documents
0 Theory
0 Very low acceptance of robotics shown by different
population
G re a t Te c h n o l o g y i s n o t e n o u g h ! ! !

14. Ethics for Educational Social
Robotics, Approach
0 Define Customers
0 Define their concerns
0 Define ethical principals answering these concerns

15. Define Customers
Educational Staff
Parents
Children

16. Educational Staff
0 Main concern
0 Mortality salience
0 Responsibility for ethical principals in kindergarten
0 Ethical Principals
0 Teacher is a part of the design process
0 Training Programs

17. Parents
0 First Meeting Procedure
0 Ethical document
0 Signed permeations
Main Concern
Ethical Document
Mate selection
Prevention of emotional attachment
Mortality salience
The robot is a toy, assistant to teacher/parent
Violation of human norms
Classical RoboEthics, e.g. Privacy ,
Confidentiality
Conflicting perceptual cues
Show whole cycle of robot’s behavior, we put the
robot with other toys
Religious definition of human identity Looking forward to deal with it (Help!!!!)

18. Ethical Principles to be
followed in Roboethics
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
Human Dignity and Human Rights
Equality, Justice and Equity
Benefit and Harm
Respect for Cultural Diversity and Pluralism
Non-Discrimination and Non-Stigmatization
Autonomy and Individual Responsibility
Informed Consent
Privacy
Confidentiality
Solidarity and Cooperation
Social Responsibility
Sharing of Benefits
Responsibility towards the Biosphere

19. Children
0 First Meeting Procedure, few examples:
0 The staff member introduced the KindSAR to the children and then allowed to robot to initiate the
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
procedure.
The purpose of the First Meeting Procedure was to introduce to children the humanoid robotic tool, a
mechanism, which selectively emulates aspects of human-like appearance and behavior (Kemp et.al,
2008).
KindSAR expressed feedback in a manner similar to the feedback conventions typically employed by the
staff.
“Full disclosure procedure,” the KindSAR explained its mission: It was there to play with children. To
demonstrate the kind of games the KindSAR would play with them ( “Simon Says” )
KindSAR explained its limitations by telling the children that it’s a robot and does not understand
everything.
To prevent the children’s emotional attachment to the robot as far as possible, and to dissimilate the
robot from a human being, the KindSAR repeatedly stated that it is a robot.
In our previous experiment, we observed that children were very concerned when the robot fell down. To
prevent such concerns, the KindSAR told the children that it sometimes falls down (because it is a robot)
and demonstrated how it happens.
To explain possible changes in its appearance and behavior, the KindSAR said that it occasionally becomes
ill and then must be taken to the “robot doctor.” The KindSAR also explained that it cannot play with
children for an extended period of time, because it needs to “eat” often: It eats when the staff connects it
to an electric socket. Thus, when the KindSAR separates from the children, it tells them that it must go to
eat and sleep.

20. LikeMeRo
2-6 years old
Development
Education
Entertainment
https://www.facebook.com/LikeMeRo

21. Educational and Ethical
Certificate
Why parents do not like mobile phones?
Fridin, M. (2014), Kindergarten Social Assistive Robot: First Meeting and Ethical Issues,
Computers in Human Behavior, pp. 53-64

22. Thank are you a lot for your attention!!!
The purpose of this lecture is to initiate discussion.
We are looking forward to hearing your feedback and
opinion.
Please Take Responsibly for our future human-robotics
community!
https://www.facebook.com/LikeMeRo
MarinaFridin@gmail.com