Anticipating the Use of Robots in Domestic Violence: A Typology of Robot Facilitated Abuse to Support Risk Assessment and Mitigation in Human-Robot Interaction

Domestic abuse research demonstrates that perpetrators are agile in finding new ways to coerce and to consolidate their control. They may leverage loved ones or cherished objects, and are increasingly exploiting/subverting what have become everyday ``smart" technologies. Robots sit at the intersection of these categories: they bring together multiple digital and assistive functionalities in an (anthropomorphised) physical body, oftentimes designed explicitly to take on a social companionship role. We present a typology of robot facilitated abuse based on these unique affordances, designed to support systematic risk assessment, mitigation and design work. Whilst we focus on domestic abuse, our typology is relevant for any application context where there exist significant power differentials between different robot users, e.g. in the school or workplace, between carers and the vulnerable, elderly and disabled and/or in institutions which facilitate intimate relations of care.