It should not be a surprise in the near future to encounter either a personal or a professional service robot in our homes and/or our work places: according to the International Federation for Robots, there will be approx 35 million service robots at work by 2018. Given that individuals will interact and even cooperate with these service robots, their design and development demand ethical attention. With this in mind I suggest the use of an approach for incorporating ethics into the (...) design process of robots known as Care Centered Value Sensitive Design. Although this approach was originally and intentionally designed for the healthcare domain, the aim of this paper is to present a preliminary study of how personal and professional service robots might also be evaluated using the CCVSD approach. The normative foundations for CCVSD come from its reliance on the care ethics tradition and in particular the use of care practices for: structuring the analysis and, determining the values of ethical import. To apply CCVSD outside of healthcare one must show that the robot has been integrated into a care practice. Accordingly, the practice into which the robot is to be used must be assessed and shown to meet the conditions of a care practice. By investigating the foundations of the approach I hope to show why it may be applicable for service robots and further to give examples of current robot prototypes that can and cannot be evaluated using CCVSD. (shrink)

The prospective robots in healthcare intended to be included within the conclave of the nurse-patient relationship—what I refer to as care robots—require rigorous ethical reflection to ensure their design and introduction do not impede the promotion of values and the dignity of patients at such a vulnerable and sensitive time in their lives. The ethical evaluation of care robots requires insight into the values at stake in the healthcare tradition. What’s more, given the stage of their development and lack of (...) standards provided by the International Organization for Standardization to guide their development, ethics ought to be included into the design process of such robots. The manner in which this may be accomplished, as presented here, uses the blueprint of the Value-sensitive design approach as a means for creating a framework tailored to care contexts. Using care values as the foundational values to be integrated into a technology and using the elements in care, from the care ethics perspective, as the normative criteria, the resulting approach may be referred to as care centered value-sensitive design. The framework proposed here allows for the ethical evaluation of care robots both retrospectively and prospectively. By evaluating care robots in this way, we may ultimately ask what kind of care we, as a society, want to provide in the future. (shrink)

Notwithstanding the fact that care ethics has received increased attention, it has also faced much criticism. One of the focal points of critics is the normativity of care. Only when the objective normative basis of care is sufficiently clarified can care practices be evaluated and optimized from an ethical point of view. We emphasize that two levels of normativity can be identified: the context level and the foundational anthropology level. The personalist approach to care ethics is normatively stronger, at least (...) on one level, namely the foundational anthropology level. This personalist approach to care ethics indicates in which direction action must be taken so that human action may be considered ethically sound. (shrink)

This paper explores the relationship between dignity and robot care for older people. It highlights the disquiet that is often expressed about failures to maintain the dignity of vulnerable older people, but points out some of the contradictory uses of the word ‘dignity’. Certain authors have resolved these contradictions by identifying different senses of dignity; contrasting the inviolable dignity inherent in human life to other forms of dignity which can be present to varying degrees. The Capability Approach (CA) is introduced (...) as a different but tangible account of what it means to live a life worthy of human dignity. It is used here as a framework for the assessment of the possible effects of eldercare robots on human dignity. The CA enables the identification of circumstances in which robots could enhance dignity by expanding the set of capabilities that are accessible to frail older people. At the same time, it is also possible within its framework to identify ways in which robots could have a negative impact, by impeding the access of older people to essential capabilities. It is concluded that the CA has some advantages over other accounts of dignity, but that further work and empirical study is needed in order to adapt it to the particular circumstances and concerns of those in the latter part of their lives. (shrink)

The growing proportion of elderly people in society, together with recent advances in robotics, makes the use of robots in elder care increasingly likely. We outline developments in the areas of robot applications for assisting the elderly and their carers, for monitoring their health and safety, and for providing them with companionship. Despite the possible benefits, we raise and discuss six main ethical concerns associated with: (1) the potential reduction in the amount of human contact; (2) an increase in the (...) feelings of objectification and loss of control; (3) a loss of privacy; (4) a loss of personal liberty; (5) deception and infantilisation; (6) the circumstances in which elderly people should be allowed to control robots. We conclude by balancing the care benefits against the ethical costs. If introduced with foresight and careful guidelines, robots and robotic technology could improve the lives of the elderly, reducing their dependence, and creating more opportunities for social interaction. (shrink)

In this article I wish to show how care ethics puts forward a fundamental critique on the ideal of independency in human life without thereby discounting autonomy as a moral value altogether. In care ethics, a relational account of autonomy is developed instead. Because care ethics is sometimes criticized in the literature as hopelessly vague and ambiguous, I shall begin by elaborating on how care ethics and its place in ethical theory can be understood. I shall stipulate a definition of (...) care ethics as a moral perspective or orientation from which ethical theorizing can take place. This will mean that care ethics is more a stance from which we can theorize ethically, than ready-made theory in itself. In conceiving care ethics in this way, it becomes possible to make clear that, for instance, a moral concept of autonomy is not abandoned, but instead is given a particular place and interpretation. In the final part of this article I will show how ‘relational autonomy’ can be applied fruitfully in the practice of psychiatric care. (shrink)

In this paper, we move toward offering psychological benchmarks to measure success in building increasingly humanlike robots. By psychological benchmarks we mean categories of interaction that capture conceptually fundamental aspects of human life, specified abstractly enough to resist their identity as a mere psychological instrument, but capable of being translated into testable empirical propositions. Nine possible benchmarks are considered: autonomy, imitation, intrinsic moral value, moral accountability, privacy, reciprocity, conventionality, creativity, and authenticity of relation. Finally, we discuss how getting the right (...) group of benchmarks in human–robot interaction will, in future years, help inform on the foundational question of what constitutes essential features of being human. (shrink)

In this paper, we move toward offering psychological benchmarks to measure success in building increasingly humanlike robots. By psychological benchmarks we mean categories of interaction that capture conceptually fundamental aspects of human life, specified abstractly enough to resist their identity as a mere psychological instrument, but capable of being translated into testable empirical propositions. Nine possible benchmarks are considered: autonomy, imitation, intrinsic moral value, moral accountability, privacy, reciprocity, conventionality, creativity, and authenticity of relation. Finally, we discuss how getting the right (...) group of benchmarks in human–robot interaction will, in future years, help inform on the foundational question of what constitutes essential features of being human. (shrink)

This study examined preschool children’s reasoning about and behavioral interactions with one of the most advanced robotic pets currently on the retail market, Sony’s robotic dog AIBO. Eighty children, equally divided between two age groups, 34–50 months and 58–74 months, participated in individual sessions with two artifacts: AIBO and a stuffed dog. Evaluation and justification results showed similarities in children’s reasoning across artifacts. In contrast, children engaged more often in apprehensive behavior and attempts at reciprocity with AIBO, and more often (...) mistreated the stuffed dog and endowed it with animation. Discussion focuses on how robotic pets, as representative of an emerging technological genre, may be blurring foundational ontological categories, and impacting children’s social and moral development. (shrink)

Autonomous robots that are capable of learning are being developed to make it easier for human actors to achieve their goals. As such, robots are primarily a means to an end and replace human actions. An interdisciplinary technology assessment was carried out to determine the extent to which a replacement of this kind makes ethical sense in terms of technology, economics and legal aspects. Proceeding from an ethical perspective, derived from Kant’s formula of humanity, in this article we analyse the (...) use of robots in the care of the elderly or infirm and then examine robot learning in the context of this kind of cooperation. (shrink)

First Published in 1993. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Soft robots promise an exciting design trajectory in the field of robotics and human–robot interaction (HRI), promising more adaptive, resilient movement within environments as well as a safer, more sensitive interface for the objects or agents the robot encounters. In particular, tactile HRI is a critical dimension for designers to consider, especially given the onrush of assistive and companion robots into our society. In this article, we propose to surface an important set of ethical challenges for the field of soft (...) robotics to meet. Tactile HRI strongly suggests that soft-bodied robots balance tactile engagement against emotional manipulation, model intimacy on the bonding with a tool not with a person, and deflect users from personally and socially destructive behavior the soft bodies and surfaces could normally entice. (shrink)