False friends and false coinage

In this paper, an analogy that Aristotle drew between false friends and false coinage is leveraged to identify ethically important features of cases involving so-called sociable robots. The use of such robots to care for the elderly and disabled poses both benefits and costs. Although a uniform verdict on the ethical use of these robots is unlikely to be forthcoming, owing to the importance of context and wide array of variables that can influence assessment of a situation, progress can be made by using analogies from other domains. Such analogies can help identify relevant features of a given situation, in order to better evaluate the costs and benefits to patients, caregivers, and designers, thereby facilitating appropriately context-sensitive judgments.