Robótica social asistencial. Implicaciones y desafíos éticos

Postprint (published version

Social assistive robotics : an ethical and political inquiry through the lens of freedom

Published online: 15 July 2024The development of social assistive robots for supporting healthcare provision faces a lack of an ethical approach that adequately addresses the normatively relevant challenges regarding its deployment. Current ethical reflection is primarily informed by an individual-centered perspective focused on robots’ implications for their end-users and thereby limited to the dyadic human–robot interaction sphere. Considering that this is tightly correlated to the restricted understanding of core ethical concepts upon which reflection stands, this paper delves into the concept of freedom from a philosophical perspective to unfold its full normative breadth for a critical assessment of technological development. By bringing to the fore the political-structural dimension of freedom and, in turn, elaborating the political dimension of technology, the undertaken philosophical approach discloses freedom as a transversal ethical concept for a normative reflection on technology. Thereby, it broadens the scope of ethical attention beyond the sphere of human–robot interaction and turns attention to the so far overlooked structural dimension of human–robot relations. Drawing on conceptions of freedom as non-domination, among others, the paper approaches social assistive robotics and reexamines the terrain of relevant issues for its development. Since freedom is one major issue upon which current concerns revolve, the undertaken analysis substantially enriches the ongoing ethical discussion on social assistive robotics’ implications for human freedom. In this way, this work contributes to going beyond the current individual-centered ethical perspective by laying conceptual grounds for a comprehensive ethical approach to social assistive robotics’ development.Open Access funding provided thanks to the CRUE-CSIC agreement with Springer Nature. This work has been partially supported by grant PRE2018-084286 funded by MCIN/ AEI /https://doi.org/10.13039/501100011033 and by "ESF Investing in your future", and by the European Union Horizon 2020 Programme under grant agreement no. 741930 (CLOTHILDE)

Challenge 6: Ethical, legal, economic, and social implications

In six decades of history, AI has become a mature and strategic discipline, successfully embedded in mainstream ICT and powering innumerable online applications and platforms. Several official documents stating specific AI policies have been produced by international organisations ( like the OCDE ), regional bodies ( EU ), several countries ( US, China, Spain, Germany, UK, Sweden, Brazil, Mexico...) as well as major AI-powered firms ( Google, Facebook, Amazon ). These examples demonstrate public interest and awareness of the economic and societal value of AI and the urgency of discussing the ethical, legal, economic and social implications of deploying AI systems on a massive scale. There is widespread agreement about the relevancy of addressing ethical aspects of AI, an urgency to demonstrate AI is used for the common good, and the need for better training, education and regulation to foster responsible research and innovation in AI. This chapter is organised around four main areas : ethics, law, economics and society ( ELES ). These areas shape the development of AI research and innovation, which in turn, influence these four areas of human activity. This interplay opens questions and demands new methods, objectives and ways to design future technologies. This chapter identifies the main impacts and salient challenges in each of these four areas.Peer reviewe

Ètica de les tecnologies: Coordenades teòrico-pràctiques per a la robòtica social

[cat] Aquesta investigació doctoral, configurada com a compendi de publicacions, respon a la necessitat d’adreçar, des de l’ètica, el desplegament de la robòtica social, en especial pel que fa a la seva branca assistencial. Tal necessitat s’explica per l’emergència d’aquest camp de la robòtica intel·ligent com a proveïdor d’eines per a contextos d’activitat professional de l’àmbit de la salut, i per les insuficiències de la reflexió ètica que l’acompanya, que deriven d’una mala articulació disciplinària de l’ètica en relació a la robòtica social. Davant d’això, la present tesi es planteja dos grans objectius, els quals es despleguen al llarg dels dos capítols principals que la conformen. El primer objectiu és establir un marc conceptual per a una correcta aproximació ètica a la robòtica social, a través d’una doble tasca. D’una banda, sobretot en el Capítol 2, s’assenten els fonaments disciplinaris per a l’abordatge ètic d’aquesta tecnologia, a partir d’una clarificació de tres qüestions clau: per què la tecnologia demana d’ètica; de quin tipus d’ètica es tracta; i quin és l’estatut de l’ètica de la tecnologia? D’altra banda, en el Capítol 3, es delimiten unes coordenades ètiques específiques per a la robòtica social assistencial, és a dir, per identificar i analitzar les qüestions normativament rellevants per al seu desplegament, d’acord amb l’estatut d’ètica aplicada que li és propi a l’ètica de la tecnologia. El segon objectiu és reexaminar qüestions ètiques centrals de la robòtica social assistencial, entrant en diàleg amb la discussió acadèmica actual. En vistes a aquest fi, en el Capítol 3 s’analitza críticament l’estat de la reflexió i les deficiències de l’aproximació ètica predominant, que es caracteritza per un oblit de la dimensió política d’aquesta tecnologia. En resposta als dèficits, s’examina la robòtica social assistencial des d’una de les coordenades ètiques anteriorment definides, la llibertat, ampliant el terreny de consideració normativa més enllà de l’esfera d’interacció diàdica humà-robot. Complementàriament, davant la necessitat d’una innovació docent en ètica per graus universitaris d’enginyeria, es proposa un pla docent per a una assignatura d’ètica de la tecnologia de 6 crèdits ECTS.[eng] This doctoral research, configured as a compilation of academic publications, responds to the need to address the deployment of social robotics from the ethics perspective, especially regarding its assistive branch. This need is explained by the emergence of this subfield of intelligent robotics as a tool provider for healthcare professional activities and by the deficiencies of the ethical reflection accompanying it, which derive from an improper disciplinary articulation of ethics on social robotics. Therefore, the current thesis obeys two primary purposes, addressed through this work's two main chapters. The first goal is establishing a conceptual framework for a proper approach to social robotics through a double task. On the one hand, mainly in Chapter 2, the disciplinary foundations for the ethical approach to this technology are grounded through clarifying three key questions: why does technology require ethics, what kind of ethics is it, and what is the statute of technology ethics? On the other hand, in Chapter 3, some specific ethical coordinates for social assistive robotics are defined; that is, coordinates to identify and analyse the normatively relevant issues for its deployment, in line with the status of applied ethics appropriate to the ethics of technology. The second goal is to reexamine some central ethical issues of social assistive robotics, thereby entering into dialogue with the current academic discussion on this theme. To that end, Chapter 3 puts forward a critical analysis of the reflection on this technology and the deficiencies of the prevailing ethical approach, which is characterized by a neglect of the political dimension of technology. In response to such deficits, social assistive robotics is examined from one of the previously defined ethical coordinates, namely freedom, thereby expanding the scope of normative consideration beyond the sphere of dyadic human-robot interaction. Additionally, given the need for innovative teaching programs on ethics in university engineering degrees, the thesis proposes a teaching plan for a technology ethics subject of 6 ECTS credits

Prolegómenos a una ética para la robótica social

Social robotics has a high disruptive potential, for it expands the field of application of intelligent technology to practical contexts of a relational nature. Due to their capacity to “intersubjectively” interact with people, social robots can take over new roles in our daily activities, multiplying the ethical implications of intelligent robotics. In this paper, we offer some preliminary considerations for the ethical reflection on social robotics, so that to clarify how to correctly orient the critical-normative thinking in this arduous task. We defend the ‘being perspective’ and its linked categories of ‘teleology’ and ‘interest’ as the ones from which to articulate the reflection. We argue that attending primarily to the robots’ ‘being’, before their ‘doing’, allows us to correctly approach the core phenomenon of all ethical concerns on social robotics (the outsourcing of our agency in these entities), avoiding the reductionisms in the ethical gaze to which the latter may lead.La robótica social presenta un elevado potencial disruptivo, al expandir el ámbito de aplicación de la tecnología inteligente a contextos prácticos de naturaleza relacional. Por su capacidad de interactuar con las personas “intersubjetivamente”, los robots sociales pueden asumir nuevos roles en nuestras actividades cotidianas, multiplicando las implicaciones éticas de la robótica inteligente. En este artículo ofrecemos algunas consideraciones preliminares para la reflexión ética sobre la robótica social, para clarificar cómo orientar acertadamente el pensar crítico-normativo en esta ardua tarea. Defendemos la ‘perspectiva del ser’ y sus categorías vinculadas de ‘teleología’ e ‘interés’ como aquellas desde las que articular la reflexión. Argumentamos que atender primariamente al ‘ser’, antes que al ‘hacer’, de los robots permite acercarnos correctamente al fenómeno nuclear de toda preocupación ética sobre la robótica social (la externalización de nuestra agencia en estas entidades), evitando los reduccionismos en la mirada ética a que éste puede conducir

Social assistive robotics: An ethical approach through the concept of freedom

Resumen del trabajo presentado en la 3rd Philosophy of Human-Technology Relations Conference, celebrada en Copenhague (Dinamarca), del 5 al 7 de julio de 2022As a technoscientific activity developing tools for specific fields of professional human activity, social robotics is a principal actor in the practical and conceptual (re)configuration of our life. It modifies the margins of human action in an unprecedented way, by allowing us to ¿outsource¿ part of our agency to robots in human practices of a relational kind, such as care. Robots¿ capacity to interact with humans ¿interpersonally¿ places social robotics ¿especially social assistive robotics (SAR)¿ as a promising technological contribution to European institutional care practices, mainly regarding healthcare. The corresponding ongoing ethical reflection is predominantly led from an individual-centered perspective, which focuses on the implications that robots may have for the well-being of humans with whom they interact. Much limited to the sphere of human-robot interaction (dyadically comprehended), this ethical approach comes along with less attention to social robotics¿ implications from both the perspective of the specific (care) practice in which AI systems are introduced and the sociopolitical perspective of justice. This tendency overlooks the constitutive interrelation between individual Well-being, Care and Justice as main spheres of human activity with ethical import regarding SAR. To contribute to overcoming this deficit, I suggest delving into the meaning of certain core ethical concepts that enable a transversal gaze to SAR implications at the micro, meso and macro level of human life, but which are narrowly understood in the current landscape of ethical debate. In this regard, I unfold the philosophical concept of freedom and some related notions such as autonomy, and I ethically (re)examine social assistive robotics in the light of these. By bringing to the fore the political-structural dimension of human-technology relations, this analysis accounts for a richer normative-oriented reflection on social robotics for the design of the Techno-Anthropocene

Prolegomena to an ethics for social robotics

Social robotics has a high disruptive potential, for it expands the field of application of intelligent technology to practical contexts of a relational nature. Due to their capacity to “intersubjectively” interact with people, social robots can take over new roles in our daily activities, multiplying the ethical implications of intelligent robotics. In this paper, we offer some preliminary considerations for the ethical reflection on social robotics, so that to clarify how to correctly orient the critical-normative thinking in this arduous task. We defend the ‘being perspective’ and its linked categories of ‘teleology’ and ‘interest’ as the ones from which to articulate the reflection. We argue that attending primarily to the robots’ ‘being’, before their ‘doing’, allows us to correctly approach the core phenomenon of all ethical concerns on social robotics (the outsourcing of our agency in these entities), avoiding the reductionisms in the ethical gaze to which the latter may lead.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Prolegomena to an Ethics for Social Robotics

[ES] La robótica social presenta un elevado potencial disruptivo, al expandir el ámbito de aplicación de la tecnología inteligente a contextos prácticos de naturaleza relacional. Por su capacidad de interactuar con las personas “intersubjetivamente”, los robots sociales pueden asumir nuevos roles en nuestras actividades cotidianas, multiplicando las implicaciones éticas de la robótica inteligente. En este artículo ofrecemos algunas consideraciones preliminares para la reflexión ética sobre la robótica social, para clarificar cómo orientar acertadamente el pensar crítico-normativo en esta ardua tarea. Defendemos la ‘perspectiva del ser’ y sus categorías vinculadas de ‘teleología’ e ‘interés’ como aquellas desde las que articular la reflexión. Argumentamos que atender primariamente al ‘ser’ de los robots, antes que a su ‘hacer’, permite acercarnos correcta-mente al fenómeno nuclear de toda preocupación ética sobre la robótica social (la externalización de nuestra agencia en estas entidades), evitan-do los reduccionismos en la mirada ética a que éste puede conducir.[EN] Social robotics has a high disruptive potential, for it expands the field of application of intelligent technology to practical contexts of a relational nature. Due to their capacity to “intersubjectively” interact with people, social robots can take over new roles in our daily activities, multiplying the ethical implications of intelligent robotics. In this paper, we offer some preliminary considerations for the ethical reflection on social robotics, so that to clarify how to correctly orient the critical-nor-mative thinking in this arduous task. We defend the ‘being perspective’ and its linked categories of ‘teleology’ and ‘interest’ as the ones from which to articulate the reflection. We argue that attending primarily to the robots’ ‘being’, before their ‘doing’, allows us to correctly approach the core phenomenon of all ethical concerns on social robotics (the out-sourcing of our agency in these entities), avoiding the reductionisms in the ethical gaze to which the latter may lead.Este artículo ha sido posible gracias a la financiación recibida por parte del Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación en el marco de las Ayudas para contratos predoctorales para la formación de doctores - FPI (PRE2018-084286), y por la Agencia Estatal de Investigación a través del Sello de Excelencia María de Maeztu del Institut de Robòtica i Informàtica Industrial (IRI), CSIC-UPC (MDM-2016-0656-18-2).Quiero expresar mi gratitud a la Dra. Begoña Román, quien, con su generosidad intelectual, su entusiasmo profesional y su incansable predisposición al diálogo, ha contribuido inestimable-mente a la publicación de este artículo

To each technology its own ethics? : a reply to Sætra and Danaher (and their critics)

Published online: 22 August 2024Contemporary ethics is currently ramifying into different sub-ethics specific to each type of technology. Although this trend has been very timely and rightly called into question by Sætra and Danaher, both these authors and their critics Llorca Albareda and Rueda leave the matter unsolved from a discipline point of view. In this commentary, we clarify the statute of the ethics of technology, which corresponds to that of a subsidiary applied ethics, and show how it is precisely that, what renders the creation of an ethics for each technology inappropriate. We thus provide a disciplinary reason to support Sætra and Danaher’s concern on tech ethics proliferation and to refute Llorca Albareda and Rueda’s relativization of it. In turn, we conclude by drawing some guidelines for tech ethics in practice.This work has been partially supported by project ROBassist: Personalized and responsible robotized assistance (202450E060) funded by CSIC. Open Access funding provided thanks to the CRUE-CSIC agreement with Springer Nature

Ethics for social robotics: A critical analysis

Trabajo presentado en el The Road to a successful HRI: AI, Trust and ethicS - TRAITS Workshop, celebrado online y presencial el 11 de marzo de 2022. Celebrado conjuntamente con ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI 2022)Social robotics development for the practice of care and European prospects to incorporate these AI-based systems in institutional healthcare contexts call for an urgent ethical reflection to (re)configurate our practical life according to human values and rights. Despite the growing attention to the ethical implications of social robotics, the current debate on one of its central branches, social assistive robotics (SAR), rests upon an impoverished ethical approach. This paper presents and examines some tendencies of this prevailing approach, which have been identified as a result of a critical literature review. Based on this analysis of a representative case of how ethical reflection is being led towards social robotics, some future research lines are outlined, which may help reframe and deepen in its ethical implications.This work has been partially supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation under a FPI scholarship for predoctoral contracts for the training of doctors (PRE2018-084286), and by the European Union Horizon 2020 Programme under grant agreement no. 741930 (CLOTHILDE)