Should Robots Help Us Eat and Drink Ourselves to Death?

As machines have begun to slowly but surely infiltrate the food service industry—perhaps best exemplified by this adorably automated restaurant in China, or the Japanese robot that stuffs tomatoes into your mouth as you jog—we should perhaps start asking questions about whether they might one day bear responsibility for feeding us crap.

One the one hand, they're just mechanical slaves who serve no purpose but to do our bidding. On the other, shouldn't we program those robots to lead us out of the dark, comforting den of booze and trans fats?

In the sleeper comedy/romance/heist film Robot and Frank, a retired jewel thief played by Frank Langella is gifted a robot to help him around the house. Initially wary of his new companion, the aging man soon realizes that the robot is the perfect accomplice because it can't make ethical decisions about aiding him to commit crimes. He begins a new series of break-ins, and it predictably goes badly.

Imagining a similar scenario in the near future, the robotics think tank Open Roboethics Initiative (ORI) recently polled 325 of its members on whether or not a care robot—that is, a robot designed to assist people suffering from various medical conditions, like an in-home nurse—should be programmed to follow its owner's wishes, regardless of the consequences.

The poll gave two hypothetical scenarios—one involving an alcoholic (Emma), and the other an obese over-eater whose diet has caused a stroke (Jack). Both patients have care robots to help them with their daily needs. But should the robots bring the alcoholic a drink if she wants, or deliver junk food to the obese man?

Interestingly enough, the respondents said that it came down to whether or not the patients owned the robots themselves.

"More than three quarters of respondents said that, when a patient owns the robot, the robot should enable their addiction (and go against doctor's orders) by submitting to their requests at least some of the time," writes the ORI. "However, when someone else owns the robot, that number drops to less than half."

The people who said that a robot should never bring the alcoholic a highball tended to feel that way regardless of whether or not she owned it. "This was not surprising," notes the ORI. "[If] Emma shouldn't get her wish for alcohol even when she owns the robot, she probably shouldn't get her wish when she is not the owner." The results were the same for poor Jack, who just wanted one more microwaveable burrito.

The odd thing is that people tended to side with doctor's orders when Jack and Emma didn't own the robots themselves—meaning that actually shelling out your own hard-earned dollars is the only way it would be acceptable to have Rosie the Maid become your enabler/bartender.

Digging deeper, the ORI analyzed comments from the respondents and placed them into three categories: people who prize personal autonomy and think that robots are our unconditional servants; people who thought that the patient's health was top priority; and people who urged compromise, with one person suggesting that robots be able to reject your initial request for a burger and a martini before eventually caving.

A bit like the calorie-counting app that shames you into making healthier eating choices, a "compromise" robot could potentially make you feel shitty enough about your decision to go off the wagon to stop you—but the decision would still ultimately be yours.

Zeebo-3000 may carry your vodka stash to you, but Zeebo-3000 will not carry the weight of your shame.