Artificial Companions Research Articles

Defining AI companions: a research agenda—from artificial companions for learning to general artificial companions for Global Harwell

This paper examines and outlines the future exploration of AI companions, focusing on three main areas. Firstly, it defines AI companions as sophisticated AI entities designed for supporting and enhancing human experiences in daily activities, such as learning, working, and others. They encompass emotional, social, and practical aspects of daily life while fostering interactions and relationships with humans. Secondly, the paper provides a historical review of AI companions for learning (i.e., AI learning companions), offering an overview of their conceptualization, development, and utilization in educational contexts and insights into their potential future trajectory. Lastly, a research agenda is presented, which includes AI learning companions—outlining key questions, challenges, and goals for integrating AI companions into learning environments—and the pursuit of Global ‘Harwell’ (a portmanteau of ‘harmony’ and ‘wellbeing’). This suggests that, in addition to transforming education, AI companions can contribute to individual wellbeing as well as broader humanitarian objectives. Beyond contributing to economic growth and efficiency, it is fundamentally important to address the most pressing global challenges or human crises of our time, foster understanding and cooperation among researchers and practitioners in different fields, and hence pave the way toward a future world marked by Global Harwell. To further advocate and demonstrate the pivotal role of AI companions in achieving these genuine objectives, we propose the General Artificial Companion Hypothesis. All these endeavors, however, begin with AI companions for learning. As Mandela said, “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”

Empathy-Aware Behavior Trees for Social Care Decision Systems

There is growing attention on the importance of building intelligent systems where humans and Artificial Intelligence-based systems (AIs) form teams exploiting the potentially synergistic relationships between humans and automation. In the last decade, the computational modeling of empathy has gained increasing attention. Empowering interactive agents with empathic capabilities leads, on the human’s side, to more trust, increases engagement, and thus interaction length, helps cope with stress. These findings suggest that agents endowed with empathy may enhance social interaction in educational applications, artificial companions, medical assistants, and gaming applications. This article focuses on modeling the empathic behavior of virtual agents interacting with humans. We propose a formal model that enables virtual agents to exhibit empathic, emotional behavior. Specifically, we extend the modeling of empathy via behavior trees with a new type of node allowing the specification of various kinds of empathy. Using the proposed extension, we show how different agents’ reactive behavior can be modeled.

Virtual Reality Companion for Dementia Patients in Long‐term Care: A Feasibility Study

AbstractBackgroundPersons with dementia (PWDs) develop progressive cognitive and physical decline which often results in placement in long‐term care (LTC). Within LTC, PWDs are at high risk for social isolation, as friends and family members may not visit often, a problem exacerbated by the COVID‐19 pandemic.MethodThis project is developing a novel application for immersive virtual reality (VR), in which an avatar (i.e. a visual representation of a person) acts as an autonomous artificial companion for PWDs in LTC. This avatar is programmed to listen to PWDs through microphones embedded in VR goggles, and provide verbal interaction with PWDs through embedded speakers. In this way, the avatar can provide a source of conversation and socialization, available at any time, for any duration. This engagement may improve quality of life, and reduce responsive and reactive dementia behaviours.ResultOur virtual companion was trialed in 10 PWD (3 men; 7 women). Most PWD found the companion to be engaging, and this invited positive reminiscence in 3 PWD. VR goggles were generally well‐tolerated, though 2 PWD closed their eyes and/or did not respond. The ability to interact verbally in a conversational manner was easier in patients with milder dementia. There was some poor performance of the speech recognition software, which impacted the flow of the conversation. Significant verbal feedback was recorded on how to improve the avatar, and how to enhance the conversation.ConclusionAn autonomous artificial companion presented in virtual reality (VR) is feasible, and may benefit persons with dementia who are at risk of social isolation. Future iterations will incorporate improved speech recognition and artificial intelligence (AI)‐guided conversation generator software.

Defining, Designing and Distinguishing Artificial Companions: A Systematic Literature Review

The present study systematically reviewed scientific literature addressing the concept of artificial companions (ACs). The dataset, which encompasses 22 years of research, was drawn from multiple interdisciplinary sources and resulted in the development of an interdisciplinary definition of the AC concept. This definition consists of two key characteristics: adaptivity and engagement, the hallmarks of ACs to form emotional bonds and long-term relationships with users. The study also analyzed various design properties associated with ACs, categorized into five groups: adaptivity to the user, adaptivity to the usage context, engagement-facilitating behavior, the agent’s personality, and its appearance. In the third part, the study explored AC scenarios and identified roles that ACs can perform with their associated competencies, user groups, and application areas. The findings of this study are seen as a proposal for future empirical research to test what features in communication and interaction design play a crucial role in shaping the perception of an agent as an AC.

AI Companion Robot Data Sharing: Preferences of an Online Cohort and Policy Implications

AbstractPolicymakers have recognized the urgent need to create AI data protections, yet the interests of older adults have thus far not been well represented. We report peoples' perspectives on small AI companion robots for older adults, along with attendant issues related to facial expression and conversation data collection and sharing. Data are from a cross‐sectional survey of an online cohort of the Oregon Center for Aging & Technology at Oregon Health & Science University, with a response rate of 45% and analytic sample of 825 (mean age: 63.9, rang: 25‐88). Logistic regressions examined relationships between comfort and data sharing preferences with socio‐demographic characteristics. Just over half (52.3%) were somewhat or very comfortable with an artificial companion robot during the pandemic and 45.2% were under normal circumstances. In adjusted models, being younger, male, and having lower formal education and greater confidence in computer use were associated with greater likelihood of being comfortable with a companion robot. Those who were at least somewhat comfortable with robots recording their conversations (15%) or reported that they would probably want their facial expressions read for emotion detection (52.8%) also selected with whom they want these data shared. Free text comments were thematically analyzed. Primary themes were that robot‐based data collection constitutes over monitoring and invasion of privacy, with participants predicting data privacy, security, and use issues. These findings about the importance potential users place on data protection and transparency demonstrate a need for law and policy to act to enable trustworthy, desirable companion robots.

Companion robots to mitigate loneliness among older adults: Perceptions of benefit and possible deception.

Given growing interest in companion robots to mitigate loneliness, large-scale studies are needed to understand peoples' perspectives on the use of robots to combat loneliness and attendant ethical issues. This study examines opinions about artificial companion (AC) robots regarding deception with dementia and impact on loneliness. Data are from a survey of 825 members of the OHSU Research via Internet Technology and Experience cohort (response rate = 45%). Sixty percent (n = 496) of the age diverse sample (range = 25-88; M = 64; SD = 13.17) is over 64, allowing us to compare across age and consider current and future older adults. Ordinal logistic regressions examined relationships between age, health, and other socio-demographic characteristics and perceptions of impact on loneliness and comfort with deception. Most participants (68.7%) did not think an AC robot would make them feel less lonely and felt somewhat-to-very uncomfortable (69.3%) with the idea of being allowed to believe that an artificial companion is human. In adjusted models, one additional year of age was associated with lower likelihood of perceived benefit of reducing loneliness [Odds Ratio (OR) = 0.98; (0.97-0.99), p = 0.003] and lower comfort with deception [OR = 0.99; (0.97-1.00), p = 0.044]. Being female was associated with lower likelihood of comfort with deception [OR = 0.68; (0.50-0.93), p = 0.014] and high confidence using computers with greater comfort [OR = 2.18; (1.42-3.38), p < 0.001]. There was not strong support for AC robots to mitigate loneliness. Most participants were uncomfortable with this form of deception, indicating need for design solutions for those who want to avoid this possibility, as well as greater attentiveness to desirability and comfort across age and gender.

Social robots as partners?

Although social robots are achieving increasing prominence as companions and carers, their status as partners in an interactive relationship with humans remains unclear. The present paper explores this issue, first, by considering why social robots cannot truly qualify as “Thous”, that is, as surrogate human partners, as they are often assumed to be, and then by briefly considering why it will not do to construe them as mere machines, slaves, or pets, as others have contended. Having concluded that none of these familiar designations does justice to social robots’ still evolving and yet-to-be-defined status, I go on to consider whether engaging in a “relational turn” which prioritises the relationship over the entities in relation, can provide a more satisfactory alternative. In defending this stance, Damiano and Dumouchel (HUMANA.MENTE J Philos Stud 13:181–206, 2020) contend that in addition to foregrounding the possibility that social robots constitute new types of artificial companions which we can find “companionable in different ways”, the relational turn has the added advantage of providing a more expansive and productive ethical framework for future research and development in this domain. But on balance, it is far from clear that this approach can circumvent the so-called “dummy-human” problem, the contention that social robots are little more than sophisticated toys with the potential to deceive their users about the prospects for genuine partnership and bonding. Accordingly, I conclude that while Damiano and Dumouchel’s shift in “target phenomenology” brings to the fore facets of the interaction that may be difficult to infer by focussing on the relata alone, it is ultimately too “thin” to qualify as a template for robust human-robotic interaction of the sort that could qualify as a genuine partnership. Hence, while their relational turn has its merits in alerting us to the novel possibilities and challenges afforded by this ever-evolving technology and to the limitations of existing frameworks, it is contended that in itself it cannot provide an adequate template for conceptualising what a genuine human–robot partnership might entail. Instead, we need a more expansive approach that can do greater justice to the complexities of human-robotic interaction in its continuities as well as differences from more familiar human (and animal) prototypes.

Half-sibling regression meets exoplanet imaging: PSF modeling and subtraction using a flexible, domain knowledge-driven, causal framework

Context. High-contrast imaging of exoplanets hinges on powerful post-processing methods to denoise the data and separate the signal of a companion from its host star, which is typically orders of magnitude brighter. Aims. Existing post-processing algorithms do not use all prior domain knowledge that is available about the problem. We propose a new method that builds on our understanding of the systematic noise and the causal structure of the data-generating process. Methods. Our algorithm is based on a modified version of half-sibling regression (HSR), a flexible denoising framework that combines ideas from the fields of machine learning and causality. We adapted the method to address the specific requirements of high-contrast exoplanet imaging data obtained in pupil tracking mode. The key idea is to estimate the systematic noise in a pixel by regressing the time series of this pixel onto a set of causally independent, signal-free predictor pixels. We use regularized linear models in this work; however, other (nonlinear) models are also possible. In a second step, we demonstrate how the HSR framework allows us to incorporate observing conditions such as wind speed or air temperature as additional predictors. Results. When we applied our method to four data sets from the VLT/NACO instrument, our algorithm provided a better false-positive fraction than a popular baseline method in the field. Additionally, we found that the HSR-based method provides direct and accurate estimates for the contrast of the exoplanets without the need to insert artificial companions for calibration in the data sets. Finally, we present a first piece of evidence that using the observing conditions as additional predictors can improve the results. Conclusions. Our HSR-based method provides an alternative, flexible, and promising approach to the challenge of modeling and subtracting the stellar PSF and systematic noise in exoplanet imaging data.

Artificial Emotions and Love and Sex Doll Service Workers

Realistic looking humanoid love and sex dolls have been available on a somewhat secretive basis for at least three decades. But today the industry has gone mainstream with North American, European, and Asian producers using mass customization and competing on the bases of features, realism, price, and depth of product lines. As a result, realistic life size artificial companions are becoming more affordable to purchase and more feasible to patronize on a service basis. Sexual relations may be without equal when it comes to emotional intimacy. Yet, the increasingly vocal and interactive robotic versions of these dolls, feel nothing. They may nevertheless induce emotions in users that potentially surpass the pleasure of human-human sexual experiences. The most technologically advanced love and sex robots are forecast to sense human emotions and gear their performances of empathy, conversation, and sexual activity accordingly. I offer a model of how this might be done to provide a better service experience. I compare the nature of resulting “artificial emotions” by robots to natural emotions by humans. I explore the ethical issues entailed in offering love and sex robot services with artificial emotions and offer a conclusion and recommendations for service management and for further research.

Evolving friendship? Essential changes, from social networks to artificial companions

Evolving friendship? Essential changes, from social networks to artificial companions

Comfort and Data Sharing With Artificial Companion Robots Among an Online Cohort

Results from a June 2020 survey on comfort with two forms of artificial companion (AC) robots in normal compared with pandemic times will be presented. 1,082 adults age 21-92 (mean 64) completed the online survey for a response rate of 45%. Significantly greater comfort is reported with small AC robots relative to larger human-shaped robots in both normal and pandemic times. In bivariate and adjusted models, younger age and male gender were most commonly associated with greater comfort with AC robots. Most participants (68.7%) did not think an AC robot would make them feel less lonely. About half (52.8 %) of the participants reported that they probably or definitely would want their facial expressions to be read, while a minority (15.0%) were at least somewhat comfortable with AC robots recording their conversations. The most common person participants wanted these data types shared with is themselves, a spouse/partner, and medical provider.

Benefits and Barriers to Emerging Technologies to Promote Health, Well-Being, and Independence of Older Adults

Emerging technologies, such as voice assistant systems and artificial companion robots, hold a great deal of promise for improving the health, wellbeing, and independence of older adults. However, these solutions will likely be ineffective in the absence of research to understand barriers to the adoption and use of these technologies and without an exploration of the needs and preferences of older adults. This symposium focuses on both the potential of such technologies and factors that may affect their success. H. Spangler will present a detailed analysis of privacy concerns of older adults, with and without cognitive impairment, related to the use of Voice Assistant Systems (VAS). R. Nicholson will discuss the potential of a VAS app for promoting exercise among older adults and their caregivers to enhance mobility independence, with a focus on perceived benefits and dislikes about the app that may impact use. Finally, C. Berridge will present an exploration of perceptions of and attitudes toward artificial companion (AC) robots across the lifespan, before and after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, including concerns about privacy. Together, these talks will highlight novel methods through which emerging technologies can support older adults and issues to consider if these methods are to produce meaningful change.

Does change in ethical education influence core moral values? Towards history- and culture-aware morality model with application in automatic moral reasoning

In this study, we focus on ethical education as a means to improve artificial companion’s conceptualization of moral decision-making process in human users. In particular, we focus on automatically determining whether changes in ethical education influenced core moral values in humans throughout the century. We analyze ethics as taught in Japan before WWII and today to verify how much the pre-WWII moral attitudes have in common with those of contemporary Japanese, to what degree what is taught as ethics in school overlaps with the general population’s understanding of ethics, as well as to verify whether a major reform of the guidelines for teaching the school subject of “ethics” at school after 1946 has changed the way common people approach core moral questions (such as those concerning the sacredness of human life). We selected textbooks used in teaching ethics at school from between 1935 and 1937, and those used in junior high schools today (2019) and analyzed what emotional and moral associations such contents generated. The analysis was performed with an automatic moral and emotional reasoning agent and based on the largest available text corpus in Japanese as well as on the resources of aJapanesedigital library. As a result, we found out that, despite changes in stereotypical view on Japan’s moral sentiments, especially due to historical events, past and contemporary Japanese share a similar moral evaluation of certain basic moral concepts, although there is a large discrepancy between how they perceive some actions to be beneficial to the society as a whole while at the same time being inconclusive when it comes to assessing the same action’s outcome on the individual performing them and in terms of emotional consequences. Some ethical categories, assessed positively before the war, while being associated with a nationalistic trend in education have also disappeared from the scope of interest of post- war society. The findings of this study support suggestions proposed by others that the development of personal AI systems requires supplementation with moral reasoning. Moreover, the paper builds upon this idea and further suggests that AI systems need to be aware of ethics not as a constant, but as a function with a correction on historical and cultural changes in moral reasoning.

On the moral status of social robots: considering the consciousness criterion

While philosophers have been debating for decades on whether different entities—including severely disabled human beings, embryos, animals, objects of nature, and even works of art—can legitimately be considered as having moral status, this question has gained a new dimension in the wake of artificial intelligence (AI). One of the more imminent concerns in the context of AI is that of the moral rights and status of social robots, such as robotic caregivers and artificial companions, that are built to interact with human beings. In recent years, some approaches to moral consideration have been proposed that would include social robots as proper objects of moral concern, even though it seems unlikely that these machines are conscious beings. In the present paper, I argue against these approaches by advocating the “consciousness criterion,” which proposes phenomenal consciousness as a necessary condition for accrediting moral status. First, I explain why it is generally supposed that consciousness underlies the morally relevant properties (such as sentience) and then, I respond to some of the common objections against this view. Then, I examine three inclusive alternative approaches to moral consideration that could accommodate social robots and point out why they are ultimately implausible. Finally, I conclude that social robots should not be regarded as proper objects of moral concern unless and until they become capable of having conscious experience. While that does not entail that they should be excluded from our moral reasoning and decision-making altogether, it does suggest that humans do not owe direct moral duties to them.

Artificial companions, social bots and work bots: communicative robots as research objects of media and communication studies

The aim of this article is to outline ‘communicative robots’ as an increasingly relevant field of media and communication research. Communicative robots are defined as autonomously operating systems designed for the purpose of quasi-communication with human beings to enable further algorithmic-based functionalities – often but not always on the basis of artificial intelligence. Examples of these communicative robots can be seen in the now familiar artificial companions such as Apple’s Siri or Amazon’s Alexa, the social bots present on social media platforms or work bots that automatically generate journalistic content. In all, the article proceeds in three steps. Initially, it takes a closer look at the three examples of artificial companions, social bots and work bots in order to accurately describe the phenomenon and their recent insinuation into everyday life. This will then allow me to grasp the challenges posed by the increasing need to deal with communicative robots in media and communication research. It is from this juncture from where I would like to draw back on the discussion about the automation of communication and clearly outline how communicative robots are more likely than physical artefacts to be experienced at the interface of automated communication and communicative automation.

Ethical Issues Raised by the Introduction of Artificial Companions to Older Adults with Cognitive Impairment: A Call for Interdisciplinary Collaborations.

Due to the high costs of providing long-term care to older adults with cognitive impairment, artificial companions are increasingly considered as a cost-efficient way to provide support. Artificial companions can comfort, entertain, and inform, and even induce a sense of being in a close relationship. Sensors and algorithms are increasingly leading to applications that exude a life-like feel. We focus on a case study of an artificial companion for people with cognitive impairment. This companion is an avatar on an electronic tablet that is displayed as a dog or a cat. Whereas artificial intelligence guides most artificial companions, this application also relies on technicians "behind" the on-screen avatar, who via surveillance, interact with users. This case is notable because it particularly illustrates the tension between the endless opportunities offered by technology and the ethical issues stemming from limited regulations. Reviewing the case through the lens of biomedical ethics, concerns of deception, monitoring and tracking, as well as informed consent and social isolation are raised by the introduction of this technology to users with cognitive impairment. We provide a detailed description of the case, review the main ethical issues and present two theoretical frameworks, the "human-driven technology" platform and the emancipatory gerontology framework, to inform the design of future applications.

INTRODUCING ARTIFICIAL COMPANIONS TO USERS WITH DEMENTIA IN UNREGULATED MARKETS: OPPORTUNITIES VS. ETHICAL ISSUES

Because of the high costs of providing long-term care, artificial companions are increasingly considered an opportunity to provide support to older adults with cognitive impairment while saving costs. Artificial companion can comfort and inform, thus inducing a sense of being in a relationship. Sensors and algorithms usually allow these applications to exude a life-like feel. The explosion of these technologies has created a “cultural lag” between their rapid commercial introduction and the slower evolution of regulations. An outcome of this cultural lag is a tension between the potential of artificial companions to support users and a series of unresolved ethical issues related to the fact that users might lack the capacity to fully understand the implications of using these technologies. Specific challenges of deception, surveillance, consent and social isolation are raised by the introduction of these technologies in users with cognitive impairment. The case study of a sophisticated artificial companion commercially available in the United States lends the opportunity to examine the tension between the potential of this technologies vs. unresolved ethical issues. This companion is an avatar on an electronic tablet that is displayed as a dog or a cat. Whereas artificial intelligence guides most artificial companions, this application is a hybrid of robots and human beings because it also relies on technicians “behind” the on-screen avatar, who via surveillance, interact with users. We conclude with a call to develop regulations promoting artificial companions as “human-driven technologies,” i.e. technologies focused on truly empowering users according to their cognitive abilities.

Prosthetic Soul Mates: Sex Robots as Media for Companionship

Prosthetic Soul Mates: Sex Robots as Media for Companionship

Artificial Intelligence in Health Care and Medicine: A Personalized Approach

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is becoming more and more ubiquitous, and AI also invades health care and related fields ever more. We believe this is a good thing. Inspired by work that we have done in various projects at the Alan Turing Institute Almere (ATIA), Delft University of Technology (TUD), Utrecht University (UU), and Vrije University (VU), we’ll review a number of applications of AI in health care and medicine, mainly from a personal viewpoint, expertise and interest. In many of the projects we have worked on there is a shared focus and interest in creating a more personalized approach to health care and medicine. It is this focus on a more personalized health care that we want to highlight in this paper. To this end, we review various examples of work to illustrate and argue that AI, and Social AI in particular, has great potential for improving healthcare and enabling a more personalized approach. We show techniques from Social AI can be effectively applied in developing Behavior Change Management systems, and illustrate its use in related work on data collection for Value-Based Health Care. In particular, we’ll discuss artificial emotions, serious games for healthcare, and artificial companions to assist with the care of patients in a hospital or home setting. These companions are able to monitor the behavior of patients, help them remind of taking medication, but also can have conversations with them giving them the feeling that they are cared for. We argue that these examples of Social AI techniques can be used to enable and improve personalized health care even in times where health care is economized upon like we face in The Netherlands. More generally, in this article we discuss various methods and techniques from AI to do this.

Sexbots: a case for artificial ethical agents

ABSTRACTRecent years have seen significant developments in Artificial Intelligence and we are now beginning to see some applications applied to sexual technologies. This has led to certain individuals and groups calling for a ban on the development of artificial sexual companions or “sexbots”. This is largely due to fears that commercialising sex in this way could could re-enforce existing gender inequalities, and sexual objectification. We argue that one possible risk mitigation strategy could be to develop ethical safeguards into sexual robots. In this paper we explore the problem of implementing artificial ethical agents through a review of the relevant literature. We begin by exploring the motivation to the problem, and the science fiction that has inspired it. Following this, the practical, and philosophical implementation challenges are discussed before providing an overview of the current state of the art. The paper concludes by introducing the grand challenges of the field.