Gathering Expert Opinions for Social Robots’ Ethical, Legal, and Societal Concerns: Findings from Four International Workshops

Abstract

Social robots, those that exhibit personality and communicate with us using high-level dialogue and natural cues, will soon be part of our daily lives. In this paper, we gather expert opinions from different international workshops exploring ethical, legal, and social (ELS) concerns associated with social robots. In contrast to literature that looks at specific challenges, often from a certain disciplinary angle, our contribution to the literature provides an overview of the ELS discussions in a holistic fashion, shaped by active deliberation with a multitude of experts across four workshops held between 2015 and 2017 held in major international workshops (ERF, NewFriends, JSAI-isAI). It also explores pathways to address the identified challenges. Our contribution is in line with the latest European robot regulatory initiatives but covers an area of research that the latest AI and robot governance strategies have scarcely covered. Specifically, we highlight challenges to the use of social robots from a user perspective, including issues such as privacy, autonomy, and the dehumanization of interactions; or from a worker perspective, including issues such as the possible replacement of jobs through robots. The paper also compiles the recommendations to these ELS issues the experts deem appropriate to mitigate compounding risks. By then contrasting these challenges and solutions with recent AI and robot regulatory strategies, we hope to inform the policy debate and set the scene for further research.

Human-centred design in industry 4.0: case study review and opportunities for future research

“…First, an autonomous system—embedding smart components in CPSs equipped with autonomous capability—achieves a specified goal independently without any human intervention (Gamer et al, 2020 ; Park & Tran, 2014 ). However, human intelligence and intervention remain a key role because of the safety, security, social aspects and uncertainties posed by such autonomous systems (Fosch-Villaronga et al, 2020 ; Gil et al, 2019 ; Nahavandi, 2017 ; Santoni de Sio & van den Hoven 2018 ; Weichhart et al, 2019 ). Along with advanced technologies in such smart systems, the role of humans has changed and shifted from low-level operations—which can be dangerous, dirty, difficult, and dull tasks—to high expertise and safe tasks (Bauer et al, 2019 ; Campbell 2021 ; Nahavandi, 2017 ; Zhang et al, 2017 ).…”

“…In this context, design for the collaboration is well known as human–robot collaboration (HRC), which is also interchangeably called human–robot interaction (Cohen et al, 2019 ; Gervasi et al, 2020 ). Beyond the physical interactions, the collaboration design also enables the robots and humans to share knowledge and learn from others, and so work towards social sustainability, i.e., discussions and accommodation with others’ perspectives (Fosch-Villaronga et al, 2020 ; Gualtieri et al, 2020 ; Richert et al, 2018 ; Weichhart et al, 2019 ).…”

Do Privacy Concerns About Social Robots Affect Use Intentions? Evidence From an Experimental Vignette Study

“…Furthermore, we see a growing, interdisciplinary interest in research about the privacy implications of social robots, with an uptick in publications across disciplines since 2015 (Lutz et al, 2019 ). To bridge the disciplinary gaps, expert workshop insights on currently under-addressed topics have led to the identification of interdisciplinary research needs (Rueben et al, 2018 ; Fosch-Villaronga et al, 2020 ; Kapeller et al, 2020 ) and have stipulated the emergence of new research fields, such as the field of privacy-sensitive robotics (Rueben et al, 2018 ). These workshops with experts across disciplines provide qualitative insights into the ethical, social, and legal implications of social (Rueben et al, 2018 ; Fosch-Villaronga et al, 2020 ) and wearable robots (Kapeller et al, 2020 ), pointing to the privacy-relevant issues to be tackled in the future.…”

“…To bridge the disciplinary gaps, expert workshop insights on currently under-addressed topics have led to the identification of interdisciplinary research needs (Rueben et al, 2018 ; Fosch-Villaronga et al, 2020 ; Kapeller et al, 2020 ) and have stipulated the emergence of new research fields, such as the field of privacy-sensitive robotics (Rueben et al, 2018 ). These workshops with experts across disciplines provide qualitative insights into the ethical, social, and legal implications of social (Rueben et al, 2018 ; Fosch-Villaronga et al, 2020 ) and wearable robots (Kapeller et al, 2020 ), pointing to the privacy-relevant issues to be tackled in the future. Privacy-related aspects include data privacy and transparency, deception and manipulation, agency and control, accountability, as well as trust, and recommendations on how to address them have been developed, for example, increased control and transparency requirements and the prohibition of data collection in certain instances.…”

“…for an overview Lutz et al, 2019 ). This topic is particularly pressing because social robots tend to exhibit greater mobility, social presence, and autonomy than static devices (Calo, 2012 ; Kaminski, 2015 ; Lutz and Tamò, 2015 , 2018 ; Sedenberg et al, 2016 ; Kaminski et al, 2017 ; Rueben et al, 2017a , 2018 ; Fosch-Villaronga et al, 2020 ). While research on privacy and social robotics has largely remained conceptual and has taken a critical approach to the data processing and privacy implications of social robots, a few studies provide quantitative evidence on the privacy concerns and implications of social robots (Lutz et al, 2019 ).…”