Physical and Digital Loss with Domestic Robotics
Devastation of homes in LA due to the 2025 Wildfires
In the wake of the devastating fires in Los Angeles and the destruction left in their path, America has been reckoning with the concept of physical domestic loss. Images of homes turned to ash have filled our tablets and phone screens for weeks and we are trying our best to sympathize with the loss of such personal property inside the victims homes. At the same time, 170 million Americans were confronted with a different form of loss with the potential tiktok ban. A seemingly intangible concept of loss was brought within striking distance as they reckoned with some faced with losing their platforms, their recorded memories, their drafts, their private message logs, their contacts, their trained algorithm tailoring their For You Page and more. Although the ban was eventually overturned within just 14 hours, Americans got a taste of what it looks like to lose access to a digital world which was woven into their social lives, their work, their method of communication and community, and their downtime.
Anticipation of the experience gave way to online discourse about loss of communication, loss of their memories, loss of community and loss of relationships. Conversation about the repercussions of this ban can easily be extrapolated and applied to other forms of loss in our digital world. As our digital world and our physical world become more and more enmeshed, as our virtual assistants and digital companions become embodied and inhabit our world and our homes along with us, how will loss be redefined?
A domestic embodied intelligence has many potential roles in our home lives including that of observer and record keeper. Precious moments captured by our domestic robots for safekeeping in a sort of digital family archive can be stored in the cloud. Personal preferences in interacting with our robots in our particular family dynamic can be refined over time through continuous learning to create and adapt the perfect home companion for our unique home. What happens if there is a data breach? If there is loss of access or storage capacity issues? If a subscription is not paid and there is a lapse or termination in service? If the hardware malfunctions, breaks down or is damaged in a catastrophic event like a fire or flood? If we move apartments or homes to a less compatible space and must change or separate from the robot we have lived alongside? Questions of loss take an entirely different form when we mesh our lives with a digital presence that lives in physical form with our families in our homes.
The field of data management will be increasingly dealing in highly sensitive and personal areas as these digital physical presences share our homes and live our lives alongside us. Automatic cloud backups or distributed storage can help to guard against physical destruction of both the robotics hardware as well as the data center. Meanwhile, encryption and secure access protocols can guard against hacking or unauthorized viewing. These protocols will be necessary standards as our emotional, interpersonal and physical worlds become increasingly dependent on interactions with humanoid robotics.
This increasing enmeshment and dependency also introduces heightened personal vulnerability and new forms of interpersonal harm related to loss. Without the proper precautions and protections, malicious actors could potentially hack into your family’s controls or cloud storage and erase or alter data as a form of harm or threat. The erasure of or release of personal archives and sensitive information introduce the necessity of digital security, digital estate planning as well as the emerging field of digital legacy protection. The erasure of personal archives, especially after loss, equates to a cruel potential for emotional and psychological harm with the potential for the grief of secondary loss, or digital loss. This could be akin to losing mementos or photos of a deceased family member if the items were destroyed in a house fire or flood. The release of personal archives without context or curation or worse, with malicious curation, could result in an uncontrollable or reputation damaging digital legacy.
On the other hand, domestic robotics can complicate the loss of a family member whether to death, divorce or extreme illness. As the composition of a family changes, robotics can either be optimized to hinder or help an individual’s healing. Depending on the unique process of working through grief for the individual family or individual, storing or replaying memories of happier times together can be a comforting resource or triggering reminder of the departed. Closure could be postponed or ushered in depending on the situation when a memory bank still contains the voice and memory of the departed. The concept of keeping part of a family member or cherished partner alive could freeze or complicate how we process grief and move forward in life after loss.
These issues regarding loss introduce complex ethical, technical, and emotional challenges to the adoption of domestic embodied intelligence. It is my hope that this piece will encourage private thought and spirited debate on protocols, design standards, and supportive services that balance the benefits of robotic memory-keeping with the sensitive nature of human grief and inevitable loss. We cannot control the unexpected loss of physical hardware, virtual data or those with whom we share our lives. We can, however, discuss expectations, establish protocols and enforce standards which aim to alleviate or lessen the burden of when tragedy strikes. Cloud backups, encrypted data, two factor authentication and trauma-informed consultants who can assist in policy regulations and recommendations will help us to prepare ourselves for the inevitable experiences of loss in the age of domestic embodied intelligence.