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Nalee Vang| Tony Elkins| Caleb Branscum| Kyrsti Hickman

Professor Colclasure
Composition II
2 December 2014
Smokey and the Robot Bibliography
Belford, Aubrey. "That's Not A Droid, That's My Girlfriend." The Global Mail. N.p., 21 Feb.
2013. Web. 23 Oct. 2014. <http://www.theglobalmail.org/feature/thats-not-a-droid-thatsmy-girlfriend/560/>.
Aubrey Belford first starts this article off with the story of three grown men who
plays this digital game called Love Plus on a Nintendo DS. According to Belford, the
three men had fallen in love with a main virtual girl character. The rest of the article then
begins to talk about the robot, Chizuko, who was created by Hiroshi Chizuko. This article
explains that, since people are already falling in love with virtual characters, it wouldnt
be hard or strange to fall in love with a robot. The article that I read basically says that
robots can serve as a substitute for girlfriends or boyfriends.
This website was really helpful because it showed that even when it wasn't robots,
people can still fall in love with digital characters just like the three men did. It gives
information that I don't think I would've found somewhere else but then again it also
contained information that I already read about in a different website. From this article, I
can use the information about the digital game and how it affects people and compare it
to robots and how that can affect people.
Brady, Jill. "Human-Robot Relationships: The Future of Full-Functionality." Alumni. Web. 23

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Oct. 2014. http://alumni.cs.ucr.edu/~bradyj/HRR.pdf
This site provides a lot of information. This mainly tells us how robots could
satisfy the sexual parts of the relationship. Porn has made the advancement of this
technology almost impossible. It creates thoughts about what it could do and what it
could not actually do. They are not real yet make it seem almost real. It says that robots
could be developed into it, but artificial intelligence is not yet ready .This article ensures
that some humans are going off the concept of semi-alive machines that can almost think
for you. It also talks about how robots could just be reprogrammed if there is a quirk that
someone does not like. The article also mentions that the human-robot relationship is
good for you. It says that it aids in the patient/caregiver communications. Some people
would view this concept of people having sex robots.
We would use this mainly to focus on having a robot as a spouse. This essay
focuses on that. We would use the information on how the artificial intelligence is not
quite there for intimate relationships. We would also use the fact that they can help
people through patient/caregiver communications. We could also use the fact that they
are programmable.
Greczek, Jillian. Children with Autism Learn Imitative Behavior from Socially Assistive
Robot. Kurzweil Accelerating Intelligence. Copyright 2014. 29 August 2014. 24 October
2014. www.kurzweilai.net/news
This news article was published about a new study that could help autistic
children learn imitative behavior with the help of these new Nao robots. The robots,
through friendly gesture, walk these children through imitative patterns. The outcome of

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this experience would be phenomenal because these children could then learn to watch
how other children interact and imitate their behavior. With this new ability children with
autism would have a higher rate of success in making friends and forming socially
accepted patterns of behavior. Also it would bring them one step closer to getting out of
the social stigma of difference.
Even though this wasn't exactly molded around could robots make good
companions for humans, it still gave way to the idea that robots could take over some of
the parenting of children. What I mean is that robots when more advanced could teach all
forms of children social order and manners. Ultimately for those parents with a busy
schedule or terrible parental skills robots could fill that void and supply a proper upbringing to children. Almost like how families of wealth let trained nannies rear their
children, but instead of a nanny it would be a robot designed for that child's needs.
Lake, Frank. Weekly World News. Weekly World News. N.p., 3 Aug. 2010. Web. 21 Oct. 2014
http://weeklyworldnews.com/headlines/20090/robot-girlfriends-go-on-sale-in-japan/.
This article shows that in Japan, robot girlfriends are already being created. One
such robot goes by the name of Chizuko. It, or she, was created by the Japanese roboticist
by the name of Hiroshi Ishiguro who works in the Intelligence Robotics Laboratory.
Originally called Geminoid F, Chizuko is his latest robot built and Hiroshi named it after
his first girlfriend. This article allowed me to read about this female robot and how it
looks exactly like a model it was made after. This website article was created four years
ago and in this, it said that Hiroshi was selling these robots for about $50,000 each. Frank
Lake says in this article that the robot Chizuko only replies to questions of its partner.

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This article was very useful because it provided information about a robot that
was already created by Ishiguro. This article explains what the robot can do and why it
was created. Because of this website, it allowed me to use the information given for my
research paper. Not only did it just give information about the robot, it also had a video of
the robot interacting with, I am guessing a reporter. Since this article only talked about
the robot, I am still searching for other websites that may provide information on benefits
of having a robot as a companion.
"RoboCom Flagship: More than Future." RoboCom Flagship: More than Future. N.p.,
n.d. Web. 29 Oct. 2014 http://www.robotcompanions.eu/project
This is an entire website dedicated to robot companions and how they can
improve the lives of people. It also talks about robot companions could change the way
that we view machinery and how it is deployed in our society. The project itself is "an
ecology of sentient machines that will help and assist humans in their broadest possible
sense to support and sustain our welfare. RCC will have soft bodies based on the novel
integration of solid articulated structures with flexible properties and display soft
behavior based on new levels of perceptual, cognitive and emotive capabilities. RCC will
be cognizant and aware of their physical and social world and respond accordingly. RCC
will attain these properties because of their grounding in the most advanced sentient
machines we know: animals. Robot Companions for Citizens will validate our
understanding of the general design principles underlying biological bodies and brains,
establishing a positive feedback between science and engineering."
Sharkey, Amanda, Noel Sharkey. The Crying Shame of Robot Nannies: an Ethical Appraisal.

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Lund University. Copyright 2008. 24 October 2014. www.lucs.lu.se
This PDF publication to an English universities website talks all about the ethical
concerns that come along with using robots as a form of a nanny service. The two authors
discuss the pros for the busy parent and the cons of how it could affect the children when
it came to actual human interaction. In this article they mainly focus on pre-kindergarten
children and the robots being there more simply as a watchdog per say.They discuss the
widening possibilities of parents losing control of their parenting style and it being taken
over by a more universal pattern.
Luckily I found this after I found the previous article because it flowed right into
my point on children being reared by robots. Even though they talk mainly about prekindergarten children it still provided a good bit of information concerning how robots
could be effectively used as caregivers for children and helped shed light on their
possible use as informative parental like units of a family. This scholarly work also
brought to light all of the negative side effects that could come along with using robots as
a resource to raise children, such as the childs possible inability to work socially with
other human beings. As for the pros of them it gave me a good understanding on how
robots could generalize raising amongst the masses. Meaning even though the parents
may not be the best source of paternal guidance the robot could fill that and make an
almost more civilized generation of children.
Subbaraman, Nidhi. "My Robot Friend: People Find Real Comfort in Artificial Companionship
NBC News." NBC News. 3 June 2013. Web. 28 Oct. 2014.
http://www.nbcnews.com/tech/innovation/my-robot-friend-people-find-real-comfortartificial-companionship-f6C10146787

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This article talks about how companions can be helpful to older people. They
were introduced to a robot companion named Paro, which is a seal. They also mention
that some models make for better companions than pets. They conduct research to find
out how attractive they are to people. They also mention that robots are starting to be able
to have feelings. A humanoid-helper robot has been developed. This article talks about
some of the benefits and also briefly how the robots work.
We would use the information that robots can help people with dementia. We
could also use them to support that robots can be a good companion. Some robots are
already being developed to help with everyday tasks. They are mainly used with the
elderly right now. We could also use the study of the seal and the dog to show that they
can be as attractive as a dog. We could also use the statistic that says it helps with
loneliness.
Tomah, Laura. "Robot Boyfriends Would Simplify Life." The Southeastern. N.p., 22 Nov. 2011.
Web.23.Oct.2014.http://homepages.se.edu/thesoutheastern/2011/11/22/robot-boyfriendswould-simplify-life/
This article gives a unique point of view through the eyes of a woman who is tired
of dating real men and dealing with everything that comes with it, such as taking care of
him when he is sick, doing his laundry, and cooking meals. She goes on to say that a
robot could be programmed to do all of these themselves as well as to do things like
simple gestures such as holding open doors and telling a girl that they're beautiful. One
could also design what he looks like, what he does for a living, and anything else you
wanted. There would also be no more criticizing how much better their mothers do
everything, in fact there would be no in-laws at all! This website was very well

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organized, broken up into chunks to symbolize different thoughts and to give it more of a
"process" feel and less of an essay or a wall of words.
We could use this article in the fact that it uses one point of view. It gives more
insight instead of just a general overview. It also provides some examples on how robots
could do simple gestures. It also says that it takes away simple daily chores making the
womans day easier. It also talks about how the robot could replace a man as far as
working for a living for them both. It also mentions that it would not negatively criticize
her and the benefits that come with that is less stress.