People with Autism Spectrum Disorder Could Interact More Easily with a Robot than with a Human: Reasons and Limits
www.mdpi.com
Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder show deficits in communication and social interaction, as well as repetitive behaviors and restricted interests. Interacting with robots could bring benefits to this population, notably by fostering communication and social interaction. Studies even suggest that people with Autism Spectrum Disorder could interact more easily with a robot partner rather than a human partner. We will be looking at the benefits of robots and the reasons put forward to explain these results. The interest regarding robots would mainly be due to three of their characteristics: they can act as motivational tools, and they are simplified agents whose behavior is more predictable than that of a human. Nevertheless, there are still many challenges to be met in specifying the optimum conditions for using robots with individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Published: 12 February 2024, PDF available, 43 pages

    • Murdoc@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      13·
      2 months ago

      Robots don’t judge you.

      (Although, to be possibly pedantic, they can judge you, or be unpredictable, if they are programmed that way. Still, I usually prefer to go through the self-checkout at the grocery store.)

      • EngineerGaming@feddit.nlEnglish
        1·
        2 months ago

        Would not mind self-checkout if they accepted cash. Although a cashier is not a big deal either, not like they talk with you aside from “do you have a discount card?” or “do you need a bag?”

      • r3df0x ✡️✝☪️@7.62x54r.ruEnglish
        0·
        2 months ago

        I support automation of the service industry, but I worry about the future of everyone when everyone is constantly going about their day with no real interaction.

        The reason I support self checkout is because a small number of employees can oversee a large number of machines. It’s bad for people who are going to end up with extreme social anxiety because they were allowed to go for long periods of time without real interaction.

          • r3df0x ✡️✝☪️@7.62x54r.ruEnglish
            1·
            2 months ago

            Not having any social interaction would be likely to make it a lot harder.

            As much as I think automation is progress, a future where people can go get stuff with no human interaction at all will likely end badly for the people who are already on the edge.

            WFH is good for a lot of people and has practical advantages, but it will likely be incredibly bad for people who are already struggling.

  • Murdoc@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    10·
    2 months ago

    I don’t like this article, it’s too negative. It’s got the whole “dysfunction rather than difference” attitude. I fear that they just want to pawn us off on robots so they don’t have to deal with us, although it does talk about using robots to “cure” us. I prefer the idea of it being two groups of people with different communication styles that both need to learn how to better communicate with each other. Most people are already bad enough with communicating with others, so I think everyone would benefit from this.

    • otacon239@feddit.deEnglish
      1·
      2 months ago

      I think something important about this is that I sometimes phrase something poorly on a first attempt. With a robot, you can tell it to ignore the original massage and rephrase it until you make your point accurately.

      With people, once you say something, they will attach that context no matter what even if you need to retry again a couple times to get the right point across.

      I didn’t have this realization until the Edit option in modern chat AIs.

  • Other@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
    4·
    2 months ago

    Robots don’t get hurt or offended or stop talking to you and refuse to tell you why.