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Robot Tutors: Welcome or Ethically Questionable?

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Robotics in Education (RiE 2019)

Part of the book series: Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing ((AISC,volume 1023))

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Abstract

Robot tutors provide new opportunities for education. However, they also introduce moral challenges. This study reports a systematic literature review (N = 256) aimed at identifying the moral considerations related to robots in education. While our findings suggest that robot tutors hold great potential for improving education, there are multiple values of both (special needs) children and teachers that are impacted (positively and negatively) by its introduction. Positive values related to robot tutors are: psychological welfare and happiness, efficiency, freedom from bias and usability. However, there are also concerns that robot tutors may negatively impact these same values. Other concerns relate to the values of friendship and attachment, human contact, deception and trust, privacy, security, safety and accountability. All these values relate to children and teachers. The moral values of other stakeholder groups, such as parents, are overlooked in the existing literature. The results suggest that, while there is a potential for applying robot tutors in a morally justified way, there are imported stakeholder groups that need to be consulted to also take their moral values into consideration by implementing tutor robots in an educational setting.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Communication Science, Media Psychology Program, VU University Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Matthijs Smakman & Elly A. Konijn

  2. Institute for ICT, HU University of Applied Sciences Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands

    Matthijs Smakman

Authors
  1. Matthijs Smakman
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  2. Elly A. Konijn
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Matthijs Smakman .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Practical Robotics Institute Austria, Vienna, Austria

    Munir Merdan

  2. Practical Robotics Institute Austria, Vienna, Austria

    Wilfried Lepuschitz

  3. Practical Robotics Institute Austria, Vienna, Austria

    Gottfried Koppensteiner

  4. Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava, Bratislava, Slovakia

    Richard Balogh

  5. Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic

    David Obdržálek

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Smakman, M., Konijn, E.A. (2020). Robot Tutors: Welcome or Ethically Questionable?. In: Merdan, M., Lepuschitz, W., Koppensteiner, G., Balogh, R., Obdržálek, D. (eds) Robotics in Education. RiE 2019. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, vol 1023. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-26945-6_34

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