Caress Me

I’ve heard many people say that they think they’re not good at comforting others, and they almost always sound ashamed. This had me wondering about the value we place on the act of comforting. Is the ability to give comfort a crucial part of the human experience? Do people believe that their perceived inadequacy to provide comfort somehow makes them less human? Do you need to be human to give comfort?

Most would say no. Therapy animals have long been used to aid and comfort people. Still, these are emotive and intuitive creatures. They need not be human to provide comfort.

This then begs the question: can artificial creatures give comfort?

The short answer is yes.

Artificial creatures are now being used more and more to provide comfort. For example, Robotic pets have been given to Dementia patients to calm their agitation (KETK NBC). These pets respond to touch and sound made by their ‘owners’, the patients, creating artificial but meaningful relations that provide comfort. In a 2024 study by Frederiksen et al., children were given pocket-sized robots to cope with their anxiety. These robots had sensors that caused a trigger once a child grabbed hold of them, making them play a rhythm-matching game. This game would divert children’s attention away from the point of stress and help them relax. Finally, Alexis E. Block has been working to develop robots that specialise in hugging. As she states, “[r]eceiving a hug is one of the best ways to feel socially supported, and the lack of social touch can have severe negative effects on an individual's well-being” (Block, 380). In her research, Block has determined that effective robot hugs rely on certain “tenets”, which dictate, for example, that the robot hug should be soft and warm, reactive to an individual’s body size, and stop hugging once the user does so as well.

These three examples show how robots are already effectively being used to provide people with comfort.