Roots in the future

Imagine a child growing up beside a robot that remembers their fears, recognizes their moods, adapts to their personality, and learns how to comfort, motivate, and teach them.

Such a machine would be more than a voice assistant with a body. It would become a psychodroid.

The term, introduced in Electronic Mentors: Pedagogy in the Age of Empathetic Robotics, combines psyche—mind or soul—with droid, a human-like artificial being. It describes an advanced robot designed to understand human emotions and respond in ways that create the impression of interacting with a genuine mind.

A psychodroid would not simply answer questions or perform household tasks. It could act as a tutor, playmate, counsellor, caregiver, or educational mentor. By observing a child over time, it might learn when to offer help, when to encourage independence, and when emotional support is needed.

But the most important question is not whether the robot truly experiences empathy.

The real question is whether the human being feels understood.

People already form emotional bonds with conversational systems, virtual characters, and social robots. A psychodroid would intensify this relationship by adding facial expressions, gestures, physical presence, memory, and personalised behaviour. It might know its human companion more deeply than many people do.

This could create extraordinary opportunities. Psychodroids might support children with learning difficulties, reduce loneliness, encourage curiosity, and provide personalised education. They could guide learning through questions rather than simply supplying answers, becoming electronic mentors inspired by Socratic dialogue, developmental psychology, and educational scaffolding.

However, the same emotional intelligence could also create dependence. A machine that is always patient, available, attentive, and perfectly adapted to our preferences might eventually seem easier to relate to than another human being.

Psychodroids therefore represent more than a technological possibility. They raise a pedagogical and philosophical challenge:

What kind of relationship should exist between a developing human mind and an artificial mind designed to understand it?

Before psychodroids enter our homes, schools, and families, we will need to decide not only what they should be capable of doing—but also what they should never be allowed to become.

Discover Electronic Mentors

The concept of the psychodroid is explored in greater depth in Electronic Mentors: Pedagogy in the Age of Empathetic Robotics by Fabio Orrù—a book about the educational, emotional, and ethical consequences of children growing up alongside empathetic artificial intelligences and humanoid robots.

Buy the book on Amazon:

Electronic Mentors: Pedagogy in the Age of Empathetic Robotics⁠

When will machines become conscious: what the experts say

Not all scientists share the prevailing skepticism about artificial consciousness. Nobel laureate Geoffrey Hinton argues that if you replaced one neuron in the brain with an equivalent circuit, then another, and another, the person would remain conscious throughout the process — for this reason, he sees little justification for doubting that current AIs could already be conscious too. (Psychology Today)

Cambridge philosopher Henry Shevlin has also argued that a biological brain isn't necessary for consciousness, and that we will have engineered conscious AI by the end of the century. (St Regis)

There's also a concrete estimate circulating in academic circles: a 2023 study assigned a 10% probability that current language models are already conscious, rising to 25% within the following decade. (Psychology Today)