Rethinking Privacy in the Age of Social Robots

Abstract

In the introduction of this thesis, I contend that robot ethics, as a research field, generally treats privacy as the appropriate distribution of information, and therefore overlooks privacy concerns raised by robots beyond this conceptualization’s purview. I illustrate this contention by evaluating a hypothetical case involving a household companionship robot via contemporary robot ethics literature focusing on privacy. I argue that this corpus cannot identify a variety of privacy concerns raised by such robots because it relies on a narrow interpretation of privacy that can only recognize privacy harms of an informational nature. I posit that privacy represents considerably more than implied by the interpretations offered by robot ethicists. Most crucially, it signifies our need to withdraw sporadically from social engagements. Considering that robots - like the one described in the case mentioned - simulate what it is like to interact with other humans, I argue that such machines will produce privacy concerns when they successfully create the impression that another person is present during moments when their users wish to be left alone. I highlight that some researchers from robot ethics have discussed issues of this kind but rarely frame them as privacy concerns, thus leaving a significant literature gap I attempt to fill via my research. I conclude the introduction by presenting a close reading of relevant privacy scholarship to evidence the claims made above and lay the theoretical foundation for the dissertation....