Abstract
Value-sensitive design theorists propose that a range of values that should inform how future social robots are engineered. This article explores a new value: digital well-being, and proposes that the next generation of social robots should be designed to facilitate this value in those who use or come into contact with these machines. To do this, I explore how the morphology of social robots is closely connected to digital well-being. I argue that a key decision is whether social robots are designed as embodied or disembodied. After exploring the merits of both approaches, I conclude that, on balance, there are persuasive reasons why disembodied social robots may well fare better with respect to the value of digital well-being.
Highlights
Digital well-being will become an increasingly important measure of the quality of life in the 21st century
I argue that we can increase the capacity of social robots to exist harmoniously with the demands of our digital well-being by ignoring media hype and remaining open-minded about their likely future morphology
Even if an embodied social robots (ESRs) like Ava was technically possible, living with such a creature may detract from our experience of the good life in ways that would not occur with a DSR
Summary
Digital well-being will become an increasingly important measure of the quality of life in the 21st century. Scholars who are sympathetic to prioritising digital well-being seek the resources to apply it to technology from diverse ethical theories of character and virtuous character traits: from neo-Aristotelianism (Coeckelbergh 2009; Elder 2019; Vallor 2011, 2012a, 2016) to Stoicism (Dennis 2019; Klincewiez 2019), from Confucianism to Buddhism (Vallor 2016; Wong 2016), to figures in post-Kantian philosophy (van de Poel 2012; Verbeek 2012) While each of these traditions propose their own conceptions of human flourishing, they are united in their view that the good life includes appropriate social relationships—the most prized of which is friendship. I argue that we can increase the capacity of social robots to exist harmoniously with the demands of our digital well-being by ignoring media hype and remaining open-minded about their likely future morphology This means that we have to interrogate the design choices made by the creators of today’s social robots at the most elementary level. I lay out four key issues that circumscribe what we should consider when thinking about how to live well with social robots
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