detail how their days might be made more interesting by an AIBO. But the robots might come with their own problems. Oliver points out that his grandparents are often confused, and it would be easy for them to confuse the robots. “Like, the old people might tell them [the AIBOs] the wrong people to obey or to do the opposite or not listen to the right person.” His sister Emma, eleven, sees only the bright side of a robotic companion. “My grandmother had a dog and the dog died before she did. My grandmother said she would die when her dog died.... I’m not sure that it is good for old people to have dogs. I think the AIBO would have been better for her.” Back in Miss Grant’s class, Bonnie thinks a robot might be the ultimate consolation. “If you had two grandparents and one died,” she says, “a robot would help the one that was alone.”
Jude, also in Miss Grant’s class, knows that his grandmother enjoys talking about the past, when she was a young mother, during what she calls “her happiest time.” He thinks that My Real Baby can bring her back to that experience. “She can play at that.” But it is Jude who first raises a question that will come to preoccupy these children. He thinks that his grandparents might prefer a robot to visits from a real baby.
Jude thinks aloud: “Real babies require work and then, well, they stop being babies and are harder for an older person to care for.” Jude says that while he and other kids can easily tell the difference between robots and a real baby, his grandparents might be fooled. “It will cry if it’s bored; when it gets its bottle, it will be happy.”
This association to the idea that robots might “double” for family members brings to mind a story I heard when I first visited Japan in the early 1990s. The problems of the elderly loomed large. Unlike in previous generations, children were mobile, and women were in the workforce. Aging and infirm parents were unlikely to live at home. Visiting them was harder; they were often in different cities from their children. In response, some Japanese children were hiring actors to substitute for them and visit aging parents. 2 The actors would visit and play their parts. Some of the elderly parents had dementia and might not have known the difference. Most fascinating were reports about the parents who knew that they were being visited by actors. They took the actors’ visits as a sign of respect, enjoyed the company, and played the game. When I expressed surprise at how satisfying this seemed for all concerned, I was told that in Japan being elderly is a role, just as being a child is a role. Parental visits are, in large part, the acting out of scripts. The Japanese valued the predictable visits and the well-trained and courteous actors. But when I heard of it, I thought, “If you are willing to send in an actor, why not send in a robot?”
Eighteen years later, a room of American fifth graders are actively considering that proposition. The children know that their grandparents value predictability. When the children visit, they try their best to accommodate their elders’ desire for order. This is not always easy: “My grandmother,” says Dennis, “she really likes it if my glass, like with water, is only placed in a certain place. She doesn’t like it if I don’t wheel her only in a certain way through the hospital. It’s hard.” In this arena, children think that robots might have an edge over them. They begin to envision robots as so much a part of the family circle that they provoke a new kind of sibling rivalry.
One girl describes a feeling close to dread: “If my grandmother started loving the robot, she might start thinking it is her family and that her real family might not be as important to her anymore.” Children worry that the robots could spark warm—too warm—feelings. They imagine their grandparents as grateful to, dependent on, and fond of their new caretakers. The robot that
Jude, also in Miss Grant’s class, knows that his grandmother enjoys talking about the past, when she was a young mother, during what she calls “her happiest time.” He thinks that My Real Baby can bring her back to that experience. “She can play at that.” But it is Jude who first raises a question that will come to preoccupy these children. He thinks that his grandparents might prefer a robot to visits from a real baby.
Jude thinks aloud: “Real babies require work and then, well, they stop being babies and are harder for an older person to care for.” Jude says that while he and other kids can easily tell the difference between robots and a real baby, his grandparents might be fooled. “It will cry if it’s bored; when it gets its bottle, it will be happy.”
This association to the idea that robots might “double” for family members brings to mind a story I heard when I first visited Japan in the early 1990s. The problems of the elderly loomed large. Unlike in previous generations, children were mobile, and women were in the workforce. Aging and infirm parents were unlikely to live at home. Visiting them was harder; they were often in different cities from their children. In response, some Japanese children were hiring actors to substitute for them and visit aging parents. 2 The actors would visit and play their parts. Some of the elderly parents had dementia and might not have known the difference. Most fascinating were reports about the parents who knew that they were being visited by actors. They took the actors’ visits as a sign of respect, enjoyed the company, and played the game. When I expressed surprise at how satisfying this seemed for all concerned, I was told that in Japan being elderly is a role, just as being a child is a role. Parental visits are, in large part, the acting out of scripts. The Japanese valued the predictable visits and the well-trained and courteous actors. But when I heard of it, I thought, “If you are willing to send in an actor, why not send in a robot?”
Eighteen years later, a room of American fifth graders are actively considering that proposition. The children know that their grandparents value predictability. When the children visit, they try their best to accommodate their elders’ desire for order. This is not always easy: “My grandmother,” says Dennis, “she really likes it if my glass, like with water, is only placed in a certain place. She doesn’t like it if I don’t wheel her only in a certain way through the hospital. It’s hard.” In this arena, children think that robots might have an edge over them. They begin to envision robots as so much a part of the family circle that they provoke a new kind of sibling rivalry.
One girl describes a feeling close to dread: “If my grandmother started loving the robot, she might start thinking it is her family and that her real family might not be as important to her anymore.” Children worry that the robots could spark warm—too warm—feelings. They imagine their grandparents as grateful to, dependent on, and fond of their new caretakers. The robot that
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