"Robots do not replace a nurse with a beating heart"

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the publicity around the implementation of the Zora robot in elderly-care services in Lahti, Finland. The aim is to discover opinions concerning the use of robots in elderly care as well as the arguments and justifications behind those opinions. Zora is a humanoid robot intended to promote mobility and rehabilitation. The Lahti pilot was the first Zora pilot in Finland in public elderly-care services. It received much publicity, both regionally and nationally.,This study is based on an empirical case study on the implementation of the Zora robot in elderly-care services. The data consist of interviews with personnel who operated Zora and comments from the general public about the “Zora” robot. Two data sources were used: 107 comments were collected from online and print media, and the personnel (n=39) who worked with Zora were interviewed. The data were analysed by means of interpretative content analysis.,The results show that public opinion is mainly negative, but that the commentators apparently have little information about the robot and its tasks. The personnel had more positive views; they saw it as a recreational tool, not as a replacement for their own roles.,There is clearly a need for more information, for a better informed discussion on how robots can be used in elderly care and how to involve the general public in this discussion in a constructive way.

[1]  Peter Kearns,et al.  Reactions to a remote-controlled video-communication robot in seniors' homes: a pilot study of feasibility and acceptance. , 2012, Telemedicine journal and e-health : the official journal of the American Telemedicine Association.

[2]  Florian Kohlbacher,et al.  The limits of participatory technology development: The case of service robots in care facilities for older people , 2015 .

[3]  Jiska Cohen-Mansfield,et al.  The Scope and Future Trends of Gerontechnology: Consumers' Opinions and Literature Survey , 2007 .

[4]  Selma Sabanovic,et al.  Robots in Society, Society in Robots , 2010, Int. J. Soc. Robotics.

[5]  Alexander Peine,et al.  Science, technology and the ‘grand challenge’ of ageing—Understanding the socio-material constitution of later life , 2015 .

[6]  Maartje M. A. de Graaf,et al.  Exploring influencing variables for the acceptance of social robots , 2013, Robotics Auton. Syst..

[7]  P. Mayring.  Qualitative Content Analysis , 2000 .

[8]  Blay Whitby,et al.  Sometimes it's hard to be a robot: A call for action on the ethics of abusing artificial agents , 2008, Interact. Comput..

[9]  Aimee van Wynsberghe,et al.  Service robots, care ethics, and design , 2016, Ethics and Information Technology.

[10]  Wendy Ju,et al.  Beyond dirty, dangerous and dull: What everyday people think robots should do , 2008, 2008 3rd ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI).

[11]  Fan-Yun Pai,et al.  Applying the Technology Acceptance Model to the introduction of healthcare information systems , 2011 .

[12]  Irene le Roux,et al.  Motivation, engagement, attitudes and buying intent of female Facebook users , 2016 .

[13]  Eun-Ju Lee,et al.  That's Not the Way It Is: How User-Generated Comments on the News Affect Perceived Media Bias , 2012, J. Comput. Mediat. Commun..

[14]  Clare Wilkinson,et al.  “Oh Yes, Robots! People Like Robots; the Robot People Should do Something”: Perspectives and Prospects in Public Engagement With Robotics , 2011 .

[15]  Goldie Nejat,et al.  Meal-time with a socially assistive robot and older adults at a long-term care facility , 2013, J. Hum. Robot Interact..

[16]  Raya A. Jones,et al.  What makes a robot ‘social’? , 2017, Social studies of science.

[17]  B. MacDonald,et al.  Attitudes towards health‐care robots in a retirement village , 2012, Australasian journal on ageing.

[18]  Rebecca Q. Stafford,et al.  Attitudes and reactions to a healthcare robot. , 2010, Telemedicine journal and e-health : the official journal of the American Telemedicine Association.

[19]  Ingrid Ott.  Service robotics: an emergent technology field at the interface between industry and services , 2012, Poiesis Prax..

[20]  Nili Steinfeld,et al.  User comments and public opinion: Findings from an eye-tracking experiment , 2016, Comput. Hum. Behav..

[21]  Hannu Lehtinen,et al.  Robotit ja hyvinvointipalvelujen tulevaisuus , 2018 .

[22]  David H. Autor,et al.  Why Are There Still So Many Jobs? The History and Future of Workplace , 2015 .

[23]  Ya-Huei Wu,et al.  Designing robots for the elderly: appearance issue and beyond. , 2012, Archives of gerontology and geriatrics.

[24]  Reid G. Simmons,et al.  Affective social robots , 2010, Robotics Auton. Syst..

[25]  J. Broekens,et al.  Assistive social robots in elderly care: a review , 2009 .

[26]  Takayuki Kanda,et al.  A conversational robot in an elderly care center: An ethnographic study , 2011, 2011 6th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI).

[27]  Vanessa Evers,et al.  The influence of social presence on acceptance of a companion robot by older people , 2008 .

[28]  N. Malanowski.  Matching Demand and Supply: Future Technologies for Active Ageing in Europe , 2008 .

[29]  S. Zwijsen,et al.  Ethics of using assistive technology in the care for community-dwelling elderly people: An overview of the literature , 2011, Aging & mental health.

[30]  Pradeep Kumar Ray,et al.  Emerging ICT implementation issues in aged care , 2015, Int. J. Medical Informatics.

[31]  N. Sharkey,et al.  Granny and the robots: ethical issues in robot care for the elderly , 2012, Ethics and Information Technology.

[32]  D. Sampsel,et al.  Acceptability and usability of a telepresence robot for geriatric primary care: A pilot. , 2015, Geriatric nursing.

[33]  Mann Hyung Hur,et al.  Empowering the elderly population through ICT-based activities: An empirical study of older adults in Korea , 2016, Inf. Technol. People.

[34]  Päivi Heikkilä,et al.  Hello Pepper, May I Tickle You?: Children's and Adults' Responses to an Entertainment Robot at a Shopping Mall , 2017, HRI.

[35]  F. Jouen,et al.  “Are we ready for robots that care for us?” Attitudes and opinions of older adults toward socially assistive robots , 2015, Front. Aging Neurosci..

[36]  Rajiv Khosla,et al.  Socially Assistive Robots in Elderly Care: A Mixed-Method Systematic Literature Review , 2014, Int. J. Hum. Comput. Interact..

[37]  Iina Aaltonen,et al.  A Telepresence Robot in Residential Care: Family Increasingly Present, Personnel Worried About Privacy , 2017, ICSR.

[38]  Patrick Weber,et al.  Discussions in the comments section: Factors influencing participation and interactivity in online newspapers’ reader comments , 2014, New Media Soc..

[39]  Bruce A. MacDonald,et al.  Acceptance of Healthcare Robots for the Older Population: Review and Future Directions , 2009, Int. J. Soc. Robotics.

[40]  Leopoldina Fortunati,et al.  Robot Shift from Industrial Production to Social Reproduction , 2015 .

[41]  Amir Hossein Ghapanchi,et al.  Assistive technologies for aged care: Comparative literature survey on the effectiveness of theories for supportive and empowering technologies , 2018, Inf. Technol. People.