Beyond Speculative Robot Ethics: A Vision Assessment Study on the Future of the Robotic Caretaker

Abstract

In this article we develop a dialogue model for robot technology experts and designated users to discuss visions on the future of robotics in long-term care. Our vision assessment study aims for more distinguished and more informed visions on future robots. Surprisingly, our experiment also led to some promising co-designed robot concepts in which jointly articulated moral guidelines are embedded. With our model, we think to have designed an interesting response on a recent call for a less speculative ethics of technology by encouraging discussions about the quality of positive and negative visions on the future of robotics.

Keywords:

• healthcare
• long-term care
• methodology
• robots
• visions
• vision assessment

Notes

1. Until now, vision assessment has mainly been conducted through discourse analysis, with a central role for the analyst in constructing the visions out of discourses (Grin and Grunwald, 2000). Roelofsen deviates from this tradition by proposing an interactive form of vision assessment, in which the visions are co-created by relevant actors.