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Caregiving robots and ethical reflection: the perspective of interdisciplinary technology assessment

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Abstract

Autonomous robots that are capable of learning are being developed to make it easier for human actors to achieve their goals. As such, robots are primarily a means to an end and replace human actions (or parts of them). An interdisciplinary technology assessment was carried out to determine the extent to which a replacement of this kind makes ethical sense in terms of technology, economics and legal aspects. Proceeding from an ethical perspective, derived from Kant’s formula of humanity, in this article we analyse the use of robots in the care of the elderly or infirm and then examine robot learning in the context of this kind of cooperation.

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Notes

  1. The Association for German Engineers.

  2. Know Library (http://roboter.know-library.net/) visited 26 February 2007.

  3. Kant 1785, p. 429: “Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of another, always at the same time as an end and never as a means”.

  4. Technology assessment combines deontological and teleological ethics (Gethmann and Kamp 2001) to justify its recommendations to act. The first refers to general principles and leads to what should be done, while the latter takes into account the consequences and utility aspects of actions.

  5. Schmidt and Krämer (2006) also conducted a terminological investigation on autonomy. They asked whether robots could and should really be autonomous entities and used “the philosophy of mind to spur on enquiry into the very essence of human autonomy.”

  6. The categorical imperative bases human action firmly in a binding moral law: "act according to the maxim which at the same time can make itself a universal law " (Kant 1785, p. 436 f).

  7. The German Worker Welfare organization (Arbeiterwohlfahrt) estimates the lack of caregivers in Germany to be 40,000 (AWO 2004). Worldwide the World Health Organisation estimates a shortage of more than 4 million doctors, nurses, midwives and others (WHO 2006, p. 11).

  8. Council Directive of 27 June 1977 concerning the coordination of provisions laid down by law, regulation or administrative action in respect of the activities of nurses responsible for general care (77/453/EEC), ABl L 176/1977, 8, modified directive 89/595/EWG, ABl. L 341/1989, S. 30.

  9. This veto function has been mentioned in another recommendation to act, which refers to the position of the human being within the control hierarchy of the robot.

  10. http://www.sfb588.uni-karlsruhe.de visited 28.2.2007.

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  1. ITAS, Institute for Technology Assessment and Systems Analysis, Research Centre Karlsruhe, Karlsruhe, Germany

    Michael Decker

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Decker, M. Caregiving robots and ethical reflection: the perspective of interdisciplinary technology assessment. AI & Soc 22, 315–330 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-007-0151-0

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