I don't Want You to Die: A Shared Responsibility Framework for Safeguarding Child-Robot Companionship

2025-10-29

AI Summary

This study examines responsibility attribution following the disruption of emotional bonds between children and social robots (e.g., Moxie). Drawing on in-depth interviews with 72 U.S. participants and socio-technical systems analysis, it documents the significant adverse impact of service termination on children’s emotional well-being and identifies polarized public stances on accountability: proponents emphasize corporate obligations to sustain services, while opponents prioritize commercial viability and mitigate dependency risks. The study introduces, for the first time, an empirically grounded “Shared Responsibility Framework” that systematically delineates differentiated roles and duties across industry, parents, developers, and government in safeguarding children’s affective welfare. It further reveals that political orientation and parental status significantly moderate responsibility attributions. The framework provides a theoretically rigorous and operationally actionable foundation for ethically informed human–robot interaction design and evidence-based policymaking on children’s digital well-being.

Technology Category

• Intelligent Robots: Human-Robot Interaction
• Philosophy and Ethics of AI: Safety, Robustness & Trustworthiness
• Cognitive Modeling & Cognitive Systems: Social Cognition And Interaction

Application Category

• Responsible Web: Machine-in-the-loop, human agency and autonomy
• User Modeling, Personalization and Recommendation: Accountability, Transparency, and Ethics for personalization
• Economics, Online Markets and Human Computation: Fairness and ethical considerations in crowd work and in human-in-the-loop AI systems

Abstract

Social robots like Moxie are designed to form strong emotional bonds with children, but their abrupt discontinuation can cause significant struggles and distress to children. When these services end, the resulting harm raises complex questions of who bears responsibility when children's emotional bonds are broken. Using the Moxie shutdown as a case study through a qualitative survey of 72 U.S. participants, our findings show that the responsibility is viewed as a shared duty across the robot company, parents, developers, and government. However, these attributions varied by political ideology and parental status of whether they have children. Participants' perceptions of whether the robot service should continue are highly polarized; supporters propose technical, financial, and governmental pathways for continuity, while opponents cite business realities and risks of unhealthy emotional dependency. Ultimately, this research contributes an empirically grounded shared responsibility framework for safeguarding child-robot companionship by detailing how accountability is distributed and contested, informing concrete design and policy implications to mitigate the emotional harm of robot discontinuation.

Problem

• Investigating responsibility distribution for emotional harm from discontinued child-robot bonds
• Analyzing polarized public perceptions on continuing or terminating robot companion services
• Developing a shared accountability framework to safeguard children's emotional well-being with robots

Innovation

• Shared responsibility framework for child-robot companionship
• Empirical study using qualitative survey with participants
• Accountability distribution among stakeholders for emotional harm