Gender Fairness in Social Robotics: Exploring a Future Care of Peripartum Depression

Abstract

In this paper we investigate the possibility of socially assistive robots (SARs) supporting diagnostic screening for peripartum depression (PPD) within the next five years. Through a HRI/socio-legal collaboration, we explore the gender norms within PPD in Sweden, to inform a gender-sensitive approach to designing SARs in such a setting, as well as governance implications. This is achieved through conducting expert interviews and qualitatively analysing the data. Based on the results, we conclude that a gender-sensitive approach is a necessity in relation to the design and governance of SARs for PPD screening.

What Norms Are Social Robots Reflecting? A Socio-Legal Exploration on HRI Developers

“…Specifically developers of social robots have been scrutinised by Richardson [25] through observing developers creating social robots at MIT; Strengers and Kennedy [26] mapping out the discourse behind social robots and its significance; and Šabanović [27] a social roboticist showcasing how developers in Japan have to follow conservative values so that the robot will be accepted within everyday society. Tanqueray et al [28] represent a collaboration between SoL and HRI scholars. This collaboration enabled to outline norms within the context of peripartum depression, and how this can be incorporated into the design of social robots to screen for peripartum depression [28].…”

“…Tanqueray et al [28] represent a collaboration between SoL and HRI scholars. This collaboration enabled to outline norms within the context of peripartum depression, and how this can be incorporated into the design of social robots to screen for peripartum depression [28].…”

“…Although the HRI community is open to submissions from various backgrounds, as showcased with the lawyer; there was no explicit mention of critical scholars being involved directly to critically conceptualise how to develop social robots into a specific setting in the 2021 HRI conference. However, Tanqueray et al [28] showed that involving different experts from different fields yields different findings, all of which are key to make an appropriate social robot in a given context. This resonates with the issue that developers are strangers in the dataset [10] and potentially mirroring harmful norms [9], since developers have to understand how to navigate a field from their own understanding, due to lack of formal legal norms or other normative guidance, they might be overlooking important social structures.…”

A case study in designing trustworthy interactions: implications for socially assistive robotics

“…Our scenario is grounded in previous studies exploring PND prediction through mobile phone data (Zhong et al, 2022), and social robotics in PND (Zhong et al, 2021;Tanqueray et al, 2022). Ultimately, the purpose of the robot is to encourage those predicted to be most at risk of PND to accept a follow-up appointment with a specialist clinician.…”

The Right (Wo)Man for the Job? Exploring the Role of Gender when Challenging Gender Stereotypes with a Social Robot

“…Work on conversational agents has demonstrated that gender bias and expectations of behaviour map into humanmachine interactions, even in the context of unimodal speechbased interactions [42,43]. Such work, in part, motivated UNESCO critique of gendered AI in the context of the continuing digital skills divide [4], which in turn has motivated work examining gender-norm breaking robot behaviour and applications in HRI [6,44].…”