Book Review: Close Engagements with Artificial Companions: Key Social, Psychological, Ethical, and Design Issues edited by Yorick Wilks

This book is an edited collection of chapters on artificial companions (ACs) resulting from a workshop. It purports to discuss the philosophical and ethical issues associated with ACs, what ACs should be like and how to construct them, and to provide examples of special-purpose ACs. Table 1 shows the chapters of the book and their respective authors. When I bought a vacuum-cleaning robot called Roomba, it never occurred to me that this was actually a companion, as claimed by Peltu and Wilks in this book’s afterword. Yes, it independently helps me, autonomously recharges its battery, and occasionally talks: “Clean brushes.” I had higher expectations of a companion, however. Perhaps it would feel more like a companion if it expressed disgust with my mess (cf. Bee et al.), inquired knowledgeably about my holidays and family (cf. Wilks), empathized with my feelings (cf. Bevacqua et al.), and advised scraping off spilled porridge with a spoon (cf. Sloman). There is no consensus in this book on what an AC should be like; each chapter tends to express an alternative (often quite radically different) opinion. In the foreword, Wilks defines ACs as “conversationalists or confidants” that get to know their owners, assist with Internet interactions, provide company and companionship, and build their owner’s biography. However, when analyzing the necessary conditions for being an AC, Pulman concludes that conversation is not needed, and Boden strongly objects to ACs as confidants because of privacy concerns. Rather than providing company, according to O’Hara, ACs will represent (technophobe) owners in complex dealings with technology. Lowe takes this one step further and questions whether ACs are really others or whether they are cooler-headed versions of ourselves. Whereas Romano defines an AC as a good friend who, among other things, makes you laugh, shares your emotions, and listens, Sloman focuses on the (in his opinion) more difficult problem of creating ACs that provide help and assistance. Turkle sees ACs as offering care as well as being good company, teachers, and lovers (!). Taylor et al. deviate from the anthropomorphic view of ACs, and discuss a robot that has no human-like properties other than that it is fed on organic material.