Should a Service Robot Bring an Alcoholic a Drink?

An anonymous reader writes: We've come to a point where care robots are being used to assist people with illnesses and mobility problems. They can bring medicine, a glass of water, food, and other items that a person may have trouble getting to on their own. But what limits should we set on these robots? Should they be able to deliver alcoholic beverages? If so, should they refuse to serve them to certain people, like children or alcoholics? The issue is complicated further because these robots may have been purchased by the patient, by the doctor or hospital (which sent it home with the patient to monitor their health), or by a concerned family member who wants to monitor their relative. The latest poll research by the Open Roboethics Initiative looked at people's attitudes about whether a care robot should prioritize its owner's wishes over those of the patient.

Comments

Should a Service Robot Bring an Alcoholic a Drink?

[DougOtto]

Yes and make sammiches.

Fridge door handle

[TerryC101]

The robot shouldn't be tasked with this judgment any more that the latch on a fridge door should be asked to keep you an your diet.

Re:Fridge door handle

[Kjella]

Do we have alcohol vending machines now?

Actually when I studied in Germany in the school cafeteria they had beer in the soda vending machine. Good times.

Re:Fridge door handle

[geekmux]

The robot shouldn't be tasked with this judgment any more that the latch on a fridge door should be asked to keep you an your diet.

Yes, slippery slope indeed. If we humans have a hard time discerning if a person is technically "obese" (as rated by the ever-popular BMI scale), how exactly is the robot supposed to tell the difference and not serve the fat human too much food? What happens when the diabetic is served too much sugar? Who's liable? Far too much sue-the-manufacturer bullshit going on to eliminate that risk altogether. We have a long way to go with liability reform before this ever comes to light, which is sad. Yet again technology stifled by greed and politics.

Re:Fridge door handle

[DarkOx]

Is it quite that simple? I think a machine should obey its owner to the limits of its capability to do so. For instance your laptop should not let me unlock your desktop session should it? Even if you left it with me meeting room while you went to get some water?

It should however let you unlock it. Maybe if you have so configured it, I should be able to logon as guest and use a web browser but not install software or access your personal files.

The care bot should be the same way. It ought to do what its owners tell it. If I buy a care bot to look after my elderly mother I would want to generally program it to obey her instructions, but maybe I would want to put in a deny list and some event triggers, like if the request includes "chocolate cake" kindly decline and remind her she is diabetic, suggest it could whip up some nice meringues dusted with coco powder if she really wants chocolate.

   

Re:Fridge door handle

[JaredOfEuropa]

They do in Tokyo; I saw a vending machine there dispensing bottles of single malt whisky. The interesting comparison with my own country isn't that they have these and we don't, but that over here such a machine would not make it past the first Friday night before being trashed and robbed.

Re:Fridge door handle

[Cenan]

I guess, instead of trying to solve the generic problem we could solve the specific problem. If the robot is caring for a diabetic, then configure it to not serve sugar. Don't try to make the robot discern whether one or the other action is the preferred one, tell it which is.

Re:Fridge door handle

[itzly]

For instance your laptop should not let me unlock your desktop session should it?

If I told you the password, why not ?

Re:Fridge door handle

[penguinoid]

So robots should not be programmed with the 3 laws?

Hell no!!! Did you even read the book? The whole point of just about every book by Asimov was that you should never, ever, under any circumstances create robots that follow the Three Laws of Robotics.

What would a Nurse Do

[l0ungeb0y]

If the robot is owned and operated by a person or organization other than the patient, then the patient should have no say. I fail to see the point here. If anything, it would be very difficult to create a robot that could determine if someone is drunk, much less is a drunk. So most likely, any nursing robot would refuse to serve booze to any patient since that would be a far easier option to implement.

Re:What would a Nurse Do

[Rei]

The summary did call the person in question the robot's owner.

I think the robot should obey the owner's wishes and get them the drink. But it should sigh audibly when asked to and mumble under its breath while giving it to them. Maybe occasionally snipe at them in a passive-aggressive manner. "Should I cancel all productive activities that you had scheduled on your calendar for today?" "Would you like vodka in a glass or should I set it up as an IV drip into your arm?" "Would you like me to make a bunch of regrettable drunken Facebook posts for you, or would you rather do it yourself?"

Should a barman bring a alcoholic robot a drink?

[ArcadeMan]

Fry: "Why would a robot need to drink?"
Bender: "I don't need to drink. I can quit anytime I want!" (burp!)

Philosophy as a Robot Buddy Movie

[colenski]

The incredibly underrated Robot and Frank explores this theme in a crime caper, wrapped in a buddy movie, wrapped into a science fiction story, wrapped in Asimovian robot philosophy. Well worth the time.

Re:Philosophy as a Robot Buddy Movie

[nitehawk214]

Fox's cancelled Almost Human did the same from the cop's point of view. Very Asimov.

It was decent, but I knew it was doomed from the start due to Fox. Came for Karl Urban but stayed for Michael Ealy. The rest of the supporting cast was effectively flat, though.

Oblig.

[Megahard]

Human: "Get me a drink"

Robot: "I'm sorry,sir, you've had too many."

Human: " Sudo get me a drink"

Robot: "Ok"

Re:Oblig.

[davidwr]

Human: "Get me a drink"

Robot: "I'm sorry,sir, you've had too many."

Human: " Sudo get me a drink"

Robot: "Ok"

Robot: And stop calling me Sudo.

Yes

[nitehawk214]

In my state bartenders are legally obligated to not serve "visibly drunk" patrons. Though only the nicer bars actually follow this rule, and it is more in place so they can easily boot out unruly drunks or bar entry for people that are already wasted before they show up.

A robot bartender in a commercial environment would either need to be able to follow all the same rules or be operated by someone that does.

The question is... If you are in your own home, does the robot count as a bartender, or is it an appliance? My guess is the latter, the responsibility belongs to the operator.

Though it would be amusing to see the door to the refrigerator refuse to open for a drunk person.
"I'm sorry Dave, I think you have already had enough to drink."
"Hey buddy, can you come in to my house and open my fridge for me?"

Re:Yes

[Kjella]

The question is... If you are in your own home, does the robot count as a bartender, or is it an appliance? My guess is the latter, the responsibility belongs to the operator.

Liquor licenses apply just to the sale of alcohol, if I'm at a private party and mix a round of drinks I don't need to follow any regulations except those that generally apply like serving alcohol to minors. And if a minor orders it from the robot, I shouldn't be in any more trouble than if they go to my fridge and grab one. I guess they could require "alcohol lockers" the way they do "gun lockers" around here, but we're not there yet.

Re:Yes

[nitehawk214]

Agreed, I also believe a professional bartender serving at a private party does not have these rules either.

Either way we are years away from a completely automated robot serving in a public location without human supervision.

Currently we are more likely to end up with this.

Is the decision-maker sapient?

[gman003]

Making decisions like this requires consideration of the consequences, which is the very definition of sapience.

If the robot is non-sapient, but simply has a configured list of users who it may or may not serve alcohol, the decision was made by the person who configured it. This would be an acceptable solution, although cumbersome and inflexible. Probably wouldn't work well enough for public bartending, but a robo-butler could work this way.

If the robot is sapient, it would be capable of making such decisions on its own. In fact, you might see robots refuse to serve alcohol at all, claiming moral reasons. On the other hand, you might see libertarian robots refuse to *not* serve someone alcohol, if they value people's right to self-determination. This would also be acceptable, but we are nowhere near this level of AI.

If the robot is non-sapient, but still expected to identify children and alcoholics on its own, problems will result. Detecting children is possible, with some false-positives (it's hard to tell a 20-year-old from a 21-year-old by appearance) and false-negatives (dwarfs/midgets/little people/hobbits/whatever the current PC term is), but how do you detect an alcoholic by their appearance?

The obvious solution for non-sapient robots requiring more flexibility than simple whitelists/blacklists, since alcohol is already a controlled substance, is to have robots require you to present ID for alcohol, and perhaps add a feature to IDs to show "recovering alcoholic, do not give alcohol" if we decide that's something that's important. Then again, we've not felt the need for that yet, with human bartenders, so maybe this whole debate is over something we've already as a society decided isn't an issue.

Re:Should a Service Robot Bring an Alcoholic a Dri

[Penguinisto]

As long as you don't demand that one provide you with sex...

But then, that's a whole other ethical bucket of fish.

Re:Should a Service Robot Bring an Alcoholic a Dri

[drinkypoo]

But then, that's a whole other ethical bucket of fish.

And/or sausages.

Roboto should always obey owner, not patient

[gurps_npc]

Robots that disobey their owner would be dramatically wrong on multiple levels.

At the same time, their owners should be legally responsible for the orders they give the robot.

So if the owner can effectively order the robot to selectively serve alcohol only to adults that are not already intoxicated, then the robots should serve alcohol.

If the robot can not make that determination, then it should not be allowed to serve alcohol.

Re:Consistency

[BarbaraHudson]

By the time we have personal robot attendants, self-driving cars will be the norm. To drunk to drive? No problem, 'cuz you can't even drive them sober.

Re:Should a Service Robot Bring an Alcoholic a Dri

[king neckbeard]

I seriously hope that robot sex is more sophisticated than just a bucket of fish, ethical or not.

Re:Should a Service Robot Bring an Alcoholic a Dri

[bill_mcgonigle]

As long as you don't demand that one provide you with sex...

But then, that's a whole other ethical bucket of fish.

Nobody thinks there's an ethical problem with me "forcing" my lawnmower to spin its blade and murder the grass, or torturing my refrigerator by chaining it to a wall and making it go "brrrr" all day.

Machines do what their owners want, end of story - there are no ethical issues unless they affect other people.

We have already answered the question.

[cheetah_spottycat]

Apparently it's perfectly fine to send killer robots to murder random unwanted people around the globe at the command of a single person with no parliamental control, no charges, no sentence, no judges, no jury, no defense and against all governing international laws. But serving alcohol to its owner is a problem because, oh my god, it might not be healthy? ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?