Cultural Analysis of Current and Future Relationships Between Robots and Humans

Preview:     The issues that this paper addresses are important in the present time because of the moral and ethical issues that it addresses.  Miguel Valez discusses robotics in a few different realms: the intimate, personal, and work realms. All three of these areas are increasingly important topics in the present day and will continue to grow as time goes on. There are different perspectives for each of the three topics of debate that this paper covers.  In the intimate realm, there are thoughts of how intimate robots are prostitution and the social norm is that prostitution is wrong, thus the reason that it is illegal.  In the personal area of robots, people believe that robots can aid and also harm personal lives.  Some people think that humans will lose touch with themselves if technology continues to grow. In the work realm, there is the entire argument on whether robots can help or hurt the economy by taking jobs or helping to aid humans in their own jobs.

Skim for cultural references:     The cultural references included in the text are the references to the intimate, personal, and work realms of using robots in each of these areas.

Skim for cultural values:     The biggest cultural values that Valez brings up are social norms. He does not go very in depth to how these three topics of debate are religious or national issues.

Reread and narrow our focus:     "Unemployment is a worldwide social problem that affects not only the unemployed individual, but also society as a whole." (2)
"While these examples are not very controversial, due to having good reasons for implementation such as safety and optimization, there are other instance"s which are quite controversial because the implementation of robots has led to complete replacement of human workers." (3)
"Although this gives more work to the lead surgeon, studies report that they prefer to have more control during surgeries since it improves their productivity and reduces the chance of human error produced by other members of the team." (3)
"However, in the long term, this allows people to abandon performing repetitive and simple tasks and concentrate more on other jobs that are not tedious and monotonous." (3)
"It is natural for us to respond with human-like behavior if we perceive it from another person, a pet, or even a robot." (4)
"Humans want attention and contact with other human beings. If there are robots that can simulate those features realistically enough, it is not surprising to me that some would replace human contact, even sexual relations, with robot contact, in order to satisfy that need." (6)

#5)     How do these keywords help support the argument that the author is making? Why might an audience be more likely to support his argument if it is connected to these values?
     These key words and phrases that Valez is using help to support his argument because it signifies the ethical and moral beliefs of many different groups of people. From religious groups, to financial groups, to ethics groups, etc, these few different topics grasp the attention of a plethora of different groups with different thoughts on all of the topics. An audience might be more likely to support his argument if it is connected to these values because people can then relate to what he is talking about more and they feel more connected to what he is saying. By using keywords such as intimacy, unemployment, and family, Valez grasps the attention of many different markets of people. He grasps peoples attention with these words so that people will continue to read his paper and develop a feeling with or against him.  All in all, these keywords grab peoples attention so they are more likely to be interested in the topic he presents.