Robots In Care And Everyday Life

This open access book presents detailed findings about the ethical, legal, and social acceptance of robots in the German and European context. The key resource is the Bremen AI Delphi survey of scientists and politicians and a related population survey. The focus is on trust in robotic assistance, human willingness to use this assistance, and the expected personal well-being in human-robot interaction. Using recent data from Eurostat, the European Social Survey, and the Eurobarometer survey, the analysis is extended to Germany and the EU. The acceptance of robots in care and everyday life is viewed against their acceptance in other contexts of life and the scientific research. The book reports on how the probability of five complex future scenarios is evaluated by experts and politicians. These scenarios cover a broad range of topics, including the worst-case scenario of cutthroat competition for jobs, the wealth promise of AI, communication in human-robot interaction, robotic assistance, and ethical and legal conflicts. International economic competition alone will ensure that countries invest sustainably in the future technologies of AI and robots. But will these technologies also be accepted by the population? The book raises the core issue of how governments can gain the needed social, ethical, and user acceptance of AI and robots in everyday life. This highly topical book is of interest to researchers, professionals and policy makers working on various aspects of human-robot interaction. This is an open access book.

Living with Robots: Emerging Issues on the Psychological and Social Implications of Robotics focuses on the issues that come to bear when humans interact and collaborate with robots. The book dives deeply into critical factors that impact how individuals interact with robots at home, work and play. It includes topics ranging from robot anthropomorphic design, degree of autonomy, trust, individual differences and machine learning. While other books focus on engineering capabilities or the highly conceptual, philosophical issues of human-robot interaction, this resource tackles the human elements at play in these interactions, which are essential if humans and robots are to coexist and collaborate effectively. Authored by key psychology robotics researchers, the book limits its focus to specifically those robots who are intended to interact with people, including technology such as drones, self-driving cars, and humanoid robots. Forward-looking, the book examines robots not as the novelty they used to be, but rather the practical idea of robots participating in our everyday lives.

Social robots not only work with humans in collaborative workspaces – we meet them in shopping malls and even more personal settings like health and care. Does this imply they should become more human, able to interpret and adequately respond to human emotions? Do we want them to help elderly people? Do we want them to support us when we are old ourselves? Do we want them to just clean and keep things orderly – or would we accept them helping us to go to the toilet, or even feed us if we suffer from Parkinson’s disease? The answers to these questions differ from person to person. They depend on cultural background, personal experiences – but probably most of all on the robot in question. This book covers the phenomenon of social robots from the historic roots to today’s best practices and future perspectives. To achieve this, we used a hands-on, interdisciplinary approach, incorporating findings from computer scientists, engineers, designers, psychologists, doctors, nurses, historians and many more. The book also covers a vast spectrum of applications, from collaborative industrial work over education to sales. Especially for developments with a high societal impact like robots in health and care settings, the authors discuss not only technology, design and usage but also ethical aspects. Thus this book creates both a compendium and a guideline, helping to navigate the design space for future developments in social robotics.

This book provides a timely overview of the impacts of digitalization from the perspective of everyday life, and argues that one central issue in digitalization is the development of new types of services that digitalization enables, but which are often overlooked due to the focus on new technologies and devices. The book summarizes the past 20 years of research into the relationship between information and communications technology (ICT) and service innovation, and reveals that the ongoing digitalization is a qualitatively different phenomenon and represents a true paradigm shift. The all-encompassing integration and distribution of data raises critical issues such as preserving human dignity and individual autonomy; moreover, interaction practices that foster broad participation, trust, learning, and a willingness to share knowledge are called for. Citizen empowerment and multi-actor co-creation have become central to using digitalization to support the development of wellbeing and sustainability. Further, the book shows how employees and professionals can and should be involved in designing their future work, and in evaluating it. Proactiveness and participation in innovation endeavours are ways to guarantee meaningful work in an age of socio-technical transition. The book employs a variety of theoretical approaches and perspectives from diverse disciplines to illustrate these needs. In addition to theoretical analyses, some specific application areas are examined, e.g. services in health and social care, and problems linked to robots in elderly care. Given its scope, the book is highly recommended to all readers seeking an overview of the current understanding of the human side of digitalization and searching for concrete cases from different countries to illustrate the topic.

The integration of robotic systems and artificial intelligence into healthcare settings is accelerating. As these technological developments interact socially with children, the elderly, or the disabled, they may raise concerns besides mere physical safety; concerns that include data protection, inappropriate use of emotions, invasion of privacy, autonomy suppression, decrease in human interaction, and cognitive safety. Given the novelty of these technologies and the uncertainties surrounding the impact of care automation, it is unclear how the law should respond. This book investigates the legal and regulatory implications of the growing use of personal care robots for healthcare purposes. It explores the interplay between various aspects of the law, including safety, data protection, responsibility, transparency, autonomy, and dignity; and it examines different robotic and AI systems, such as social therapy robots, physical assistant robots for rehabilitation, and wheeled passenger carriers. Highlighting specific problems and challenges in regulating complex cyber-physical systems in concrete healthcare applications, it critically assesses the adequacy of current industry standards and emerging regulatory initiatives for robots and AI. After analyzing the potential legal and ethical issues associated with personal care robots, it concludes that the primarily principle-based approach of recent law and robotics studies is too abstract to be as effective as required by the personal care context. Instead, it recommends bridging the gap between general legal principles and their applicability in concrete robotic and AI technologies with a risk-based approach using impact assessments. As the first book to compile both legal and regulatory aspects of personal care robots, this book will be a valuable addition to the literature on robotics, artificial intelligence, human–robot interaction, law, and philosophy of technology.

This book contains a comprehensive overview of all current uses of robots in rehabilitation. The underlying principles in each application are provided. This is followed by a critical review of the technology available, of the utilization protocols, and of user studies, outcomes, and clinical evidence, if existing. Ethical and social implications of robot use are also discussed. The reader will have an in depth view of rehabilitation robots, from principles to practice.

Social robots have significantly advanced in capabilities and availability, gradually becoming part of everyday life. Their new interactive features are relevant to the struggling care sector. As Western societies age, the demand for care services rises, yet the workforce does not grow at the same rate. This book explores the potential of social robots to support the workforce and enhance the well-being of residents in care homes. Using a socio-informatics approach, this research investigates how residents and caregivers interact with social robots, examines and facilitates their appropriation, and provides insights into the development of the robots' software and hardware. The research and development were carried out collaboratively in care homes with the people who work and live there. The findings indicate that social robots can be beneficial in care homes. They broaden the options for social care workers and, when integrated into daily routines, can provide brief respite periods. Additionally, they positively impact residents by engaging them in cognitive and physical activities. However, the robots can only assist, and not replace, care workers.

Prominent experts from science and the humanities explore issues in robot ethics that range from sex to war. Robots today serve in many roles, from entertainer to educator to executioner. As robotics technology advances, ethical concerns become more pressing: Should robots be programmed to follow a code of ethics, if this is even possible? Are there risks in forming emotional bonds with robots? How might society—and ethics—change with robotics? This volume is the first book to bring together prominent scholars and experts from both science and the humanities to explore these and other questions in this emerging field. Starting with an overview of the issues and relevant ethical theories, the topics flow naturally from the possibility of programming robot ethics to the ethical use of military robots in war to legal and policy questions, including liability and privacy concerns. The contributors then turn to human-robot emotional relationships, examining the ethical implications of robots as sexual partners, caregivers, and servants. Finally, they explore the possibility that robots, whether biological-computational hybrids or pure machines, should be given rights or moral consideration. Ethics is often slow to catch up with technological developments. This authoritative and accessible volume fills a gap in both scholarly literature and policy discussion, offering an impressive collection of expert analyses of the most crucial topics in this increasingly important field.

The text presents the conclusions of four years joint work of 12 European laboratories on mobile robotics technology for healthcare services. The book bridges the human factors and the demands of real-life applications to the achievements of the robotics technology. It is organize d in 15 chapters analyzing topics covering all the related fields and including but not limited to: user - application requirements, human machine interfacing, mobile robots' and mobile manipulators' control architectures, navigation and sensing strategies, and robot - smart building interconnection. It also provides technical details and hints to the reader on how to address real-life problems. The book also performs a historical review and includes an overview of the contemporary developments worldwide.