18 - Rosie Is a Rental

Summary

When the idea of a robot butler or maid started to spread, Rosie from the Jetsons became a symbol for a vision shared by many roboticists: One day, each household would have a robotic helper that takes care of our chores and keeps us company. However, when we examine the realities of robots produced for the consumer market today (from autonomous cars to social robots), we discover that realizing such a future with robots is not all that rosy for consumers. From a property law perspective, we find that most consumers will only partially own the robots they purchase. The software that gives life, functionality, and character to the robots will likely be owned by the manufacturer, who can take it all away from the purchasers just as easily as they can change subscription fees and user terms and conditions. In this chapter, we draw analogies from the automotive industry and current business trends in the consumer robotics market to underscore seven issues that stem from this precarious ownership dynamic. Reflecting on our collective journey toward “a robot in every home,” we highlight how the status quo is not only unsustainable from an environmental perspective (i.e., generation of electronic waste) but also ineffective in generating a flourishing consumer robotics market. We find that the existing roboethics and AI ethics frameworks do not sufficiently protect consumers from these issues and call on the community to critically examine the complex ethical and societal implications of deploying social robots widely.