The Ethical Risk of Attachment: How to Identify, Investigate and Predict Potential Ethical Risks in the Development of Social Companion Robots

In this paper we present the Triple-A Model intended as a framework for researchers and developers to incorporate ethics in the user-and robot-centered design of social companion robots. The purpose of the model is to help identifying potential ethical risks in the implementation of Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) scenarios. We base our model on three interaction levels, which companion robots can offer: Assistance, Adaptation, and Attachment (Triple-A). Every single interaction level has its specific potential ethical risks, which can be addressed during the robot development phase. However, we especially focus on the prominent ethical risks of long-term human-robot attachment and its implications on human-robot relationships. We discuss the practical use and the theoretical foundation of the Triple-A model which is well-grounded in the social role theory from sociology and the human cognitive-mnestic structure from cognitive science.