by Carme Torras
It is well known that digital technologies open up divides (based on age, wealth, education, world areas) and robots may widen some of these because of their cost, physical embodiment, and nontrivial usage. Conversely, robotic assistants targeted at vulnerable groups could reduce social discriminations and help shrink such divides if policy measures were taken to provide the required financial resources and knowhow to such groups. Leo is aware of this social problem and decides to sacrifice his immediate freedom to work toward making the creativity prosthesis available to everybody.
I’ll close this appendix by tying it back to the epigraph at the beginning of the novel. In it, philosopher Robert C. Solomon was referring to human relationships, but here we can reinterpret it as saying that the human-robot interactions we are currently establishing will in turn shape us. Along this line, Silvana provocatively states that slave robots make owners despotic, entertainers brainwash their users, and overprotective ones spoil people by doing everything for them, even making their decisions for them; Leo counters her by showing that robots can be stimulating and foster our creativity, thus enabling humankind to reach unforeseen heights.
Like most researchers, I endorse neither a catastrophic view of the future nor a blind optimism in regard to technological progress. I believe personal-assistant robots have a place at home, at school, and at work to free us from boring tasks, enhance our physical and cognitive capabilities, and grant more autonomy to elderly and disabled people, but only in very restricted circumstances should they be used as emotional surrogates. These robots point to some nuanced social issues and pose intriguing ethical questions, which open up amazing possibilities for the future. In this very delicate area, science fiction may help us clarify the role that the human being and the robot have to play in this pas de deux in which we are irrevocably engaged.