Robot Care Ethics Between Autonomy and Vulnerability: Coupling Principles and Practices in Autonomous Systems for Care

Abstract

Technological developments involving robotics and artificial intelligence devices are being employed evermore in elderly care and the healthcare sector more generally, raising ethical issues and practical questions warranting closer considerations of what we mean by “care” and, subsequently, how to design such software coherently with the chosen definition. This paper starts by critically examining the existing approaches to the ethical design of care robots provided by Aimee van Wynsberghe, who relies on the work on the ethics of care by Joan Tronto. In doing so, it suggests an alternative to their non-principled approach, an alternative suited to tackling some of the issues raised by Tronto and van Wynsberghe, while allowing for the inclusion of two orientative principles. Our proposal centres on the principles of autonomy and vulnerability, whose joint adoption we deem able to constitute an original revision of a bottom-up approach in care ethics. Conclusively, the ethical framework introduced here integrates more traditional approaches in care ethics in view of enhancing the debate regarding the ethical design of care robots under a new lens.

Emotions and Automation in a High-Tech Workplace: a Commentary

“…Ley briefly discusses how Care Centered Value-Sensitive Design (CCVSD) was founded and why. Not only this, but Ley also further strengthened this part by presenting recent expansions to CCVSD, highlighting where CCVSD may be lacking (i.e., see Umbrello et al, 2021;Pirni et al, 2021). This reinforced her goal of expanding care ethics into a 'broader theoretical argument', as she explicitly aims to do.…”

The Ethical Governance for the Vulnerability of Care Robots: Interactive-Distance-Oriented Flexible Design

“…Pirni et al argued that artificial morality can only reflect a synthetic sensitivity, whereas previous sensitivity designs targeted biological sensitivity [61]. Therefore, this design concept of value sensitivity needs to be reconsidered in human-machine interaction, especially considering the relational, expectant character of care ethics, like empathy.…”

Pro-Social Rule Breaking as a Benchmark of Ethical Intelligence in Socio-Technical Systems

“…However, it is still debatable whether these implementations make reliable, ethical agents. This is due to the shortcomings of the design approaches we currently use (Pirni et al, 2021) or the practical challenges to implementing ethical features This article is part of the Topical Collection on AAAI Symposium * Rajitha Ramanayake…”

“…Deontological implementations (Bringsjord et al, 2006) of artificial ethical agents primarily use a rule-based approach to decide the ethical action in a given situation, and consequentialist implementations use world models and consequence engines (Lindner et al, 2017; Vanderelst & Winfield, 2018) to decide what is ethical.However, it is still debatable whether these implementations make reliable, ethical agents. This is due to the shortcomings of the design approaches we currently use (Pirni et al, 2021) or the practical challenges to implementing ethical features This article is part of the Topical Collection on AAAI Symposium * Rajitha Ramanayake…”