Professor Noel Sharkey of the University of Sheffield has called for international guidelines to be set for the ethical and safe application of robots.

For example, “because of the physical safety that robot minders provide, children could be left without human contact for many hours a day or perhaps for several days, and the possible psychological impact of the varying degrees of social isolation on development is unknown,” he said.

And elder-care robots “could lead to the risk of leaving the elderly in the exclusive care of machines without sufficient human contact.”

No international legislation or policy guidelines currently exist, except in terms of negligence.