I don't Want You to Die: A Shared Responsibility Framework for Safeguarding Child-Robot Companionship

Abstract

Social robots like Moxie are designed to form strong emotional bonds with children, but their abrupt discontinuation can cause significant struggles and distress to children. When these services end, the resulting harm raises complex questions of who bears responsibility when children's emotional bonds are broken. Using the Moxie shutdown as a case study through a qualitative survey of 72 U.S. participants, our findings show that the responsibility is viewed as a shared duty across the robot company, parents, developers, and government. However, these attributions varied by political ideology and parental status of whether they have children. Participants' perceptions of whether the robot service should continue are highly polarized; supporters propose technical, financial, and governmental pathways for continuity, while opponents cite business realities and risks of unhealthy emotional dependency. Ultimately, this research contributes an empirically grounded shared responsibility framework for safeguarding child-robot companionship by detailing how accountability is distributed and contested, informing concrete design and policy implications to mitigate the emotional harm of robot discontinuation.