I am becoming quite fond of RSA animations, and they are becoming more of my idea tinkering entertainment sources during dinner. If any of the roboethicists out there are a fan of either TED videos or RSA animations, please do watch the talk by Jeremy Rifkin.

Starting with the story of mirror neuron discovery, Jeremy Rifkin talks about how as empathic beings we can build an empathic civilisation at a global level and can really build a better world.
One of the issues of social robots is the unknown long-term social effects it may have on its user. Would the users desire to be alone with the robot more than socializing with what we call fellow human beings? Would that cause dangerous psychological changes on the user? Would robotics nannies be able to foster the development of children as empathic beings? Would empathic behaviors be a useful thing to have in a robot?

Empathy is currently being explored within the field of robotics. Feelix Growing, apparently have been working on a project where human emotion is to be interpreted from facial expressions and other human non-verbal behaviors. In a short paper published at AAAI 2006, Adriana Tapus and Maja J Matari´c, researchers from the University of Southern California, explored possible role of empathy in socially assistive robotics [pdf]. The host of benefits outlined by the USC researchers may be able to answer some of Anthony Cirillo’s complaints made about how robots are starting to take more hospital jobs away from people. In his post on the blog Hospital Impact, Cirillo is pessimistic that robots can exhibit sympathetic or empathetic behavior. It is true that some hospitals are cutting staff and buying more robots, as an article from Fierce Healthcare reported last week.

El Camino Hospital in Los Gatos and Mountain View, Calif. said it plans to lay off 140 employees by the end of October in an attempt to save money. The hospital sent out warning notices to 195 employees, reports San Jose Mercury News.
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In a separate move to reduce costs, El Camino has leased 19 robots from Aethon. The robots–which reportedly save time and increase surgery success–deliver medications, lab samples, food and supplies around the hospital, reports Businessweek.
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Hiring 19 humans to make those deliveries would have cost El Camino more than $1 million a year, according to Ken King, vice-president of facilities and support services. Leasing the robots, on the other hand, only costs $350,000 a year. According to Aethon CEO Aldo Zini, the robots offer other advantages: “They don’t take breaks and vacation and you don’t have to pay them benefits.”

It is not surprising that such trend towards more robots and less humans in many work places aren’t the most optimistic picture in the public’s eyes. As a study by Leila Takayama and Wendy Ju reported in 2008, people feel more positively towards robots that work with people, rather than replacing them. But what if even such hospital robots leased by Californian hospitals could exhibit empathetic behavior indistinguishable from that of humans? Would it lesson the public’s resistance?…