Who Is Afraid of Nudging by Robots?

IntroductionImagine Rob, a robot with a human shape that has "lived" in your home for the past five years or so.Rob is particularly good at interacting with human beings in ways that the latter find smooth and congenial.Rob recognizes you and the other members of your house hold, and its manners around all of you are much more informal and convivial than the manners it adopts when interacting with people outside the family.Rob is equipped with software that allows it not only to infer the emotional state its interlocutors are in (the software combines data provided by the tone of one's voice, the muscles on one's face, body posture, and checks this data against an almost infinite library of " human stories" and their statistical association to specific emotions) but also to adapt its be hav ior in a way that displays emotional attunement.By listening in to conversations taking place in the house day in and day out for many years, and by coupling its ability to "read emotions, its listening' skills," and its memory, Rob is capable of inferring what kinds of things each member of your house hold really cares about, and hence, what they fear most, what they find most satisfaction in pursuing, what they would be most sad losing, and so on.In its interactions with the family members, Rob uses this knowledge to channel the conversation, to say the "right" things, while displaying the right emotions (adjusted to the preference of each individual).Every now and then, one of you asks Rob for counsel.Access to its " human" library allows Rob to know what humans in similar circumstances typically do when facing the type of predicament for which counsel is being sought and how their actions tend to turn out.There is a clear sense in which you are attached to Rob.You attribute a personality to "him" ("Rob is caring, sweet, and funny").If it were to dis appear or drastically change its be hav ior pattern, you would be saddened and worried.Its absence would certainly be noticed, and its presence missed. Who Is Afraid of Nudging by Robots?