On Ethical, Legal and Social Issues of Care Robots

According to recent figures, in the next years, Western developed societies will be supposed to face the “aging problem”. The population aged 60 will surpass that of younger people and, to make things even worst, current trends in social relations indicate that family carers are no more willing to look after their older relatives. Such a situation has given more emphasis to the rise of robotics as a possible solution to deal with the demographic change and the new social norms in the care of elderly and disabled people. The ways in which robotics has been proposed to address the “aging problem” are manifold: ranging from humanoids, general purpose robots, to less invasive, distributed and task-specific systems. This chapter intends to provide the reader with an overview of the main ethical, legal and societal challenges concerning the use of care robots.

[1]  Wendy A. Rogers,et al.  Identifying the Potential for Robotics to Assist Older Adults in Different Living Environments , 2014, Int. J. Soc. Robotics.

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

[3]  G. Veruggio.  The birth of roboethics , 2005 .

[4]  G. Bekey,et al.  Robot Caregivers: Ethical Issues across the Human Lifespan , 2012 .

[5]  Nancy J. Hirschmann,et al.  Moral Boundaries: A Political Argument for an Ethic of Care. By Joan Tronto. New York: Routledge, 1993. 242 pp. $173.00 (hardcover), $53.95 (paperback). , 2018, Politics & Gender.

[6]  Jeroen van den Hoven,et al.  Responsible Innovation 2: Concepts, Approaches, and Applications , 2015 .

[7]  S. Lehman-Wilzig.  Frankenstein unbound: Towards a legal definition of artificial intelligence☆ , 1981 .

[8]  Takanori Shibata,et al.  Investigation on people living with Paro at home , 2010, 19th International Symposium in Robot and Human Interactive Communication.

[9]  Clifford Nass,et al.  The media equation - how people treat computers, television, and new media like real people and places , 1996 .

[10]  Jason Borenstein,et al.  Robot caregivers: harbingers of expanded freedom for all? , 2010, Ethics and Information Technology.

[11]  Robert Trappl,et al.  Your Virtual Butler , 2013, Lecture Notes in Computer Science.

[12]  R. Sparrow.  The March of the robot dogs , 2002, Ethics and Information Technology.

[13]  Claudia Oppenauer-Meerskraut.  Would a Virtual Butler Do a Good Job for Old People? Psychological Considerations about Benefits and Risks of Technological Assistance , 2013, Your Virtual Butler.

[14]  Shannon Vallor.  Carebots and Caregivers: Sustaining the Ethical Ideal of Care in the Twenty-First Century , 2011, Machine Ethics and Robot Ethics.

[15]  Alberto Sanfeliu Cortés,et al.  Legal challenges for networking robots deployment in European urban areas: the privacy issue , 2009 .

[16]  S. Turkle.  Authenticity in the age of digital companions , 2007 .

[17]  I. Bourgeault,et al.  Economic and Social Integration of Immigrant Live-in Caregivers in Canada , 2014 .

[18]  R. V. Schomberg.  A vision of Responsible Innovation , 2013 .

[19]  Aimee van Wynsberghe,et al.  Designing Robots for Care: Care Centered Value-Sensitive Design , 2013, Sci. Eng. Ethics.

[20]  Daniele Senzani.  CHARTER OF FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS OF THE EUROPEAN UNION , 2016 .

[21]  D Feil-Seifer,et al.  Socially Assistive Robotics , 2011, IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine.

[22]  Guglielmo Tamburrini,et al.  Ethical reflections on health care robotics , 2009 .

[23]  Mark Coeckelbergh,et al.  Human development or human enhancement? A methodological reflection on capabilities and the evaluation of information technologies , 2011, Ethics and Information Technology.

[24]  Paolo Dario,et al.  An Investigation on Legal Regulations for Robot Deployment in Urban Areas: A Focus on Italian Law , 2010, Adv. Robotics.

[25]  J. Parks.  Lifting the Burden of Women's Care Work: Should Robots Replace the “Human Touch”? , 2010, Hypatia.

[26]  R. V. Schomberg.  A Vision of Responsible Research and Innovation , 2013 .

[27]  Stephanie Showalter.  The Legal Status of Autonomous Underwater Vehicles , 2004 .

[28]  Takanori Shibata,et al.  Investigation on people living with Paro at home , 2009, RO-MAN 2009 - The 18th IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication.

[29]  Stina Nylander,et al.  A complementing approach for identifying ethical issues in care robotics - grounding ethics in practical use , 2012, 2012 IEEE RO-MAN: The 21st IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication.

[30]  Caroline Wehrmann,et al.  Beyond Speculative Robot Ethics: A Vision Assessment Study on the Future of the Robotic Caretaker , 2010, Accountability in research.

[31]  Paolo Dario,et al.  Robot Companions as Case-Scenario for Assessing the “Subjectivity” of Autonomous Agents. Some Philosophical and Legal Remarks , 2012, ECAI 2012.