Love, Joy, and Autism Robots: A Metareview and Provocatype

Understand

Previous work has observed how Neurodivergence is often harmfully pathologized in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and Human-Robot interaction (HRI) research.

• We conduct a review of autism robot reviews and find the dominant research direction is Autistic people's second to lowest (24 of 25) research priority: interventions and treatments purporting to 'help' neurodivergent individuals to conform to neurotypical social norms, become better behaved, improve social and emotional skills, and otherwise 'fix' us -- rarely prioritizing the internal experiences that might lead to such differences.
• Furthermore, a growing body of evidence indicates many of the most popular current approaches risk inflicting lasting trauma and damage on Autistic people.
• We draw on the principles and findings of the latest Autism research, Feminist HRI, and Robotics to imagine a role reversal, analyze the implications, then conclude with actionable guidance on Autistic-led scientific methods and research directions.