Agency – Dependence
The user can develop a physical dependence on the robot.
Human-robot interaction is often discussed in terms of the independence it can provide. Robots can help people carry out daily tasks, support mobility, or assist with decision-making in situations where human help is not always available. Yet this same support raises an important concern: dependence. As robots become more capable and integrated into everyday life, there is a risk that people may come to rely on them so heavily that essential skills, confidence, or resilience begin to diminish.
Dependence is closely related to the value of agency, which concerns a person's ability to act according to their own beliefs and choices. While robots can reduce a user's dependence on other people, this can create a new form of dependence on the technology itself. During our focus groups, participants raised concerns that relying too much on robots could lead to the gradual deterioration of skills such as cooking, problem-solving, or critical thinking. At the same time, some participants questioned whether this process might be more complex than simple deskilling. They suggested that interacting with robots could also foster new abilities, potentially replacing old skills with different, and perhaps even more useful, ones.
These concerns are reflected throughout the broader HRI literature. Several studies emphasise the importance of continuing to think and act independently rather than allowing robots to take over too much responsibility. One participant remarked that "it's important to keep thinking for yourself" because otherwise people may become passive and disengaged. Concerns about over-reliance are particularly common in care settings, where researchers have highlighted risks to user autonomy and stressed that robots should complement, rather than replace, individual capabilities and circumstances. Others worry about practical vulnerabilities: if someone becomes dependent on a robot, what happens when it fails, refuses assistance, or is no longer available? Similar concerns appear in discussions of AI and professional expertise, where researchers argue that routinely offloading difficult decisions to machines may gradually erode human judgment and preparedness for complex situations. Together, these findings suggest that dependence is not simply a technical issue but a human one, raising questions about how robots can support people without undermining the skills and capacities that make independent action possible.
Excerpts from the paper:
About the value "Agency"
This value encompasses three topics – independence, dependence, and control – all related to the user's physical freedom. This term, prior to the focus groups, referred to one of the topics, but it was promoted to a value following the suggestions from the focus groups participants, uniforming our definition of agency with Prunkl (2022): "A person is able to act on the beliefs and values they hold. This implies that they have meaningful options available to them, allowing them to make choices that are of practical import to their life". As it emerged during the focus groups, agency differs from autonomy as the latter is used in this work to encompass topics which do not possess physical connotations.
About "Dependence"
The previous topic can also be viewed with negative connotations. Indeed, when the subject's independence relies on robots instead of other humans, the subject becomes dependent on the robots themselves. For example, the focus groups' participants mentioned that this could lead to a deterioration of various skills, such as cooking or reasoning. One of the participants particularly questioned if deskilling might be offset by the development of new, possibly superior, skills gained through interaction with the robot.