Robots and Autism: Is Kaspar just a sophisticated doll?

 

In the BBC Documentary, Six Robots and Us, Ethan Docherty, a four-year-old boy on the autistic spectrum, is introduced to a robot called Kaspar at his home.

Kaspar, a short robot who sits on a table, dressed in jeans and casual shirt is able to respond to simple instructions and speak in simple sentences and display a limited set of facial expressions.  The idea is that Ethan can learn basic social communication from interaction with Kaspar.

Kaspar is programmed with the help of a computer scientist to meet some of the language needs of Ethan. We see Kaspar sitting with the family at the breakfast table. All eyes are on Kaspar and the antics of this novel robot. The breakfast table talk is about robots.

Over a period of six weeks, Ethan shows extraordinary progress, interacting socially with his parents. Kaspar has made a difference. But no one asks why.

There are Youtube videos which show autistic children interacting with Kaspar: The researcher sits next to the child and the carer from watches across a table.  The child is encouraged to interact with Kaspar: tickle Kaspar’s foot and he giggles; hit Kaspar and he says’ That hurts’.  The researcher takes hold of the child’s arm to direct the action of the child and demonstrate  Kaspar’s capabilities.  How does the child feel about his arm being moved or his head straightened to look directly at Kaspar?

In another video the child is asked whether Kaspar is sad, as Kaspar displays a simplified sad face. The child is quickly distressed and starts to hit Kaspar. The researcher pulls he child back in order that Kaspar is not damaged.  What distressed the child and why did she lash out at Kaspar?

Talking about autism is rather like talking about cancer. There are many types and a plethora of systemic interactions which lead to the expressed behaviour. Asperger’s syndrome, for example, is just one on the lighter end of the autistic spectrum. It involves difficulty with social communications, and a tendency to obsessive focus on particular subjects and interests.

However, it is widely assumed that children and adults on the autistic spectrum lack empathy and as such cannot understand social signals and hence communicate socially. It isn’t that the autistic child lacks empathy, it’s more that he feels too much. Emotions which we modulate flood the child. Autistic children are hyper sensitive to simulation.

In a room of people, we might filter out eighty per cent of sounds and sights. The autistic child can’t and finds such social environments overwhelming. Light touch may feel tortuous. It is as if the colours around them are painfully intense or the sound in a room is like the constant noise of a loud and cacophonous orchestra.

Faced with the overwhelming demand placed on his processing power, the demands for attention, for engagement and the tsunami of sensual input, the child must take coping action. This may involve withdrawing, just shutting down, curling up in a corner. Or it may involve aggression, hitting out, either hitting carers or engaging in self-harm to try to shut out the information overload.

So what is really happening with Kaspar? Is Kaspar really teaching social interaction and cues?  Or is Kaspar just a technologically advanced robotic placebo?

When Kaspar sits at the breakfast table the family dynamics may be completely changed. Ethan is no longer the centre of attention. The predominant focus on his behaviour is replaced by a fascination with Kaspar. Ethan no longer feels the intensity of observation. Kaspar, the researcher and the film crew offer a distraction. With the attention off him, Ethan no longer feels socially overwhelmed. His head doesn’t feel as if it’s exploding at the family breakfast table. He is less stressed by the family expectations.  His anxiety level reduces.

The attention is on the other, on Kaspar, so Ethan can consider the other. While Kaspar is around it is his simple behaviour that fascinates the family and is the subject of conversation rather than Ethan’s misbehaviour. Kaspar frees Ethan from comment and correction. So Ethan needs less processing power to manage the emotional overload and actually has spare capacity to do what he really wants to do: to emotionally connect with his mother.

Kaspar in effect says, ‘Hey, I’m over here’ and draws the emotional fire off Ethan. What is Kaspar doing? Teaching social behaviour? Not at all. Given the space, Ethan will do that himself. The presence of Kaspar adjusts the emotional environment.

With Kaspar, the structure of the interaction changes. We move from the child as central, with the clinician interviewing the child and the carer focusing on the child to Kaspar at the centre and the carer, the psychologist and the researcher all focussing on Kaspar. This raises a burden from the child’s shoulders but it doesn’t mean that Kaspar is contributing anything beyond what might be expected from a mechanical doll.

It is revealing that the blog about Kaspar and the Robots and Us programme in which Ethan features refers to Ethan being able to accurately describe his day, implying that Ethan could describe his day but not to the accuracy required.

And what about the child who attacks Kaspar when his face is sad? She does not need to be told what ‘sad’ is. She knows it only too well. The intensity of emotion she feels in observing Kaspar’s sadness is overwhelming. She must stop it. Because Kasper shouldn’t be sad and she doesn’t want to continue to experience such strong emotion. Kaspar must stop. But how? She has no tools for engaging with someone else’s sadness or helping them not to feel sad, or understanding how to remain in the sadness. So she hits Kaspar to try to get him to stop.

And the researcher intervenes: not out of a wish to relieve the child’s stress, but rather to protect Kaspar. Because this is a technocentric exercise. It is the robot that is the subject, the centre of attention and the child is the servant of the robot.  The child will be manipulated insensitively to look at the robot, to press Kaspar’s foot. The child may even be encouraged to hit the robot in order to demonstrate Kaspar’s response. The child is sublimated to the robot.  And such sublimation is little short of abuse.

Ethically we have to question the use of Kaspar. We see from the video scant attention given to the child, a lack of empathy with the autistic state and the anxiety and panic caused by the sadness of the robot. Why?  If we see the human as mechanistic as a robot we will assume that the two are interacting on the same plane. They are definitely not. The robot simply repeats an  act mechanically. The child is attempting to interpret her environment and make social decisions, while facing an overwhelming cacophony of social input which cannot be ignored or dampened as a neurotypical person might.

In watching the video clips, one almost gets the impression that the exercise is one of demonstrating the technological marvel and programming of Kaspar. Kaspar is wonderful, can respond to tickling.  The child must have its arm pushed forward to get her to try out this wonder. It is not about the autistic child. It is about Kaspar.  Kasper sits at the centre of the scene, raised on a table above the rest of us. We sit round in admiration and do Kaspar’s bidding. The humans are servants of the technology. Kaspar becomes a god, emitting phrases and responses instead of fire and smoke, dominating the environment, demanding all  our attention at the expense of the carer and the child.

I am suggesting here that with no attempt to ask why the intervention of Kaspar has positive effects, there is no basis for the use of the robot. All we are doing is entering into a 21^st Century alchemy where intervention with strange potions, bleeding and other medieval cures is replaced by technology, robotics and computer algorithms.  Our reliance on Kaspar is an act of faith, directed at the promotion and primacy of the technology.

(See : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6gTHPoO9VI  Impact of Kaspar: http://www.herts.ac.uk/kaspar/impact-of-kaspar)