Developing an Ethical Framework for Robots for Care in a Children’s Hospital

• In Event: Situated Ethics and Normativities in Knowledge Making and Communities of Practice - I

Abstract

The introduction of sophisticated robots for care in children’s hospitals not only transforms what doctors, nurses or psychologist do, but also the way that children, their families and medical personnel think about care, therapy, health, companionship, etc. Working within this logic, the main aim of this paper is to develop a methodology to assist in the definition of a normative ethical framework capable of guiding the introduction and use of robots for children’s care in hospital settings.

The proposed methodology rests upon a non-essentialist stance on the question of what a robot for care is and, consequently, how the relationships between humans and robots are (or how they should or should not be). This ontological relativism has its counterpart in the need to explore ad hoc configurations of human-robot interactions or, at least, imaginary ad hoc configurations. Human-robot interactions are conceptualized as networks of actors linked to daily situations and practical experiences. With the intention of moving away from the profuse speculative debates around utopian and dystopian scenarios, we use an empirical ethics to reflect about the ethical implications, focusing on the particular contexts of robot use and its network relationships.

We will present empirical work based on a methodology inspired by Vision Assessment studies. Different stakeholders are interviewed in order to grasp fears and hopes regarding the use of robots in healthcare settings with the aim to move from speculative to empiric considerations by adjusting certain specific dynamics and scripts of qualitative methods.

Authors

• Núria Vallès-Peris, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

• Miquel Domenech, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona