Toward a Desirable Relationship of Artificial Objects and the Elderly: From the Standpoint of Engineer and Psychologist Dialogue

Abstract

In this paper a psychologist discusses the desirable relationship between the elderly and Artificial Objects based on some questions raised by an engineering researcher. Concretely, the paper discusses the differences between Objects, Machines, and Artificial Objects. Through this, it reveals the characteristic of Artificial Objects and presents the following four points that can be potentially problematic with respect to the relationship between such objects and the elderly. Moreover, these points should also be kept in mind by engineering researchers when developing Artificial Objects. 1) Artificial objects move autonomously, and therefore users can not take the role of initiator. That is, people must accommodate to artificial objects. 2) Artificial objects still only have a limited learning ability for creating relationships with their users, including the understanding of contexts and a shared history not unlike that between people. 3) Even with increased leaning ability as a result of increased efficacy and expanded operating capacity, which in turn leads to the creation of better relationships between artificial objects and persons, there are limitations to such relationships. 4) There is a need to point out the problem of initially focusing too heavily on the functions that artificial objects should have. Especially for the elderly, engineers should take time to consider the relationships of dependency that the objects they design will gradually foster over time.