Older adults stay attached to a companion robot after it is taken away

Osaka University researchers, including Hiroshi Ishiguro, placed Sharp's small RoBoHoN humanoid in the homes of 13 older people living alone for one to four months and then removed it. Attachment scores stayed steady two months later, and most participants reported distress after the robot left, with a few taking a month or more to adjust. Staff and relatives rated loneliness as higher at the second check, though the authors could not attribute this to the robot's absence alone. The exploratory study raises an ethical question often ignored in trials: how to end a relationship with a companion robot responsibly.

Source: Frontiers in Computer Science