Robots responding to care needs? : A multitasking care robot pursued for 25 years, available products offer simple entertainment and instrumental assistance
Publiceringsår
2020
Upphovspersoner
Van Aerschot, Lina; Parviainen, Jaana
Abstrakt
Twenty-five years ago, robotics guru Joseph Engelberger had a mission to motivate research teams all over the world to design the ‘Elderly Care Giver’, a multitasking personal robot assistant for everyday care needs in old age. In this article, we discuss how this vision of omnipotent care robots has influenced the design strategies of care robotics, the development of R&D initiatives and ethics research on use of care robots. Despite the expectations of robots revolutionizing care of older people, the role of robots in human care has remained marginal. The value of world trade in service robots, including care robots, is rather small. We argue that the implementation of robots in care is not primarily due to negative user attitudes or ethical problems, but to problems in R&D and manufacturing. The care robots currently available on the market are capable of simple, repetitive tasks or colloquial interaction. Thus far, also research on care robots is mostly conducted using imagi-nary scenarios or small-scale tests built up for research purposes. To develop useful and affordable robot solutions that are ethically, socially and ecologically sustainable, we suggest that robot initiatives should be evaluated within the framework of care ecosystems. This implies that attention has to be paid to the social, emotional and practical contexts in which care is given and received. Also, the political, economic and ecological realities of organizing care and producing technological commodities have to be acknowledged. It is time to openly discuss the drivers behind care robot initiatives to outline the bigger picture of organizing care under conditions of limited resources.
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Publikationstyp
Publikationsform
Artikel
Moderpublikationens typ
Tidning
Artikelstyp
En originalartikel
Målgrupp
VetenskapligKollegialt utvärderad
Kollegialt utvärderadUKM:s publikationstyp
A1 Originalartikel i en vetenskaplig tidskriftPublikationskanalens uppgifter
Förläggare
Volym
22
Nummer
3
Sidor
247-256
ISSN
Publikationsforum
Publikationsforumsnivå
2
Öppen tillgång
Öppen tillgänglighet i förläggarens tjänst
Ja
Öppen tillgång till publikationskanalen
Delvis öppen publikationskanal
Parallellsparad
Ja
Övriga uppgifter
Vetenskapsområden
Social- och samhällspolitik; Filosofi; El-, automations- och telekommunikationsteknik, elektronik
Nyckelord
[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object]
Publiceringsland
Nederländerna
Förlagets internationalitet
Internationell
Språk
engelska
Internationell sampublikation
Nej
Sampublikation med ett företag
Nej
DOI
10.1007/s10676-020-09536-0
Publikationen ingår i undervisnings- och kulturministeriets datainsamling
Ja