Nursery World - Robots 'would be dubious role model' in childcare

A generation of children face being raised by robots, an expert in robotics has warned.

Speaking at the Cheltenham Science Festival last week (5 June), NoelSharkey, a professor of artificial intelligence and robotics atSheffield University, said that Japanese companies such as Sony and NECare aiming to develop 'childminding robots' equipped with infared tagsto alert adults when children move.

Professor Sharkey said, 'Robots have been developed that are great formonitoring children. Adults can log in to the robot from the internet orfrom their mobile phones. They can direct the robot and see through itscameras and they can even speak to the children through the robot'svoice.

'My concern is that these robots will prove too useful. It would be alltoo easy to leave the children with a robot and watch them from acomputer screen. Eventually, childcare professionals may use theserobots. This may be quite safe, but what kind of role model is a robot?Could this lead to a generation of misfits?'

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