Value Sensitive Design to Achieve the UN SDGs with AI: A Case of Elderly Care Robots

Steven Umbrello,Marianna Capasso,Alberto Pirni,Federica Merenda,Maurizio Balistreri

doi:10.1007/s11023-021-09561-y

Steven Umbrello, Marianna Capasso + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11023-021-09561-y

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Abstract

Healthcare is becoming increasingly automated with the development and deployment of care robots. There are many benefits to care robots but they also pose many challenging ethical issues. This paper takes care robots for the elderly as the subject of analysis, building on previous literature in the domain of the ethics and design of care robots. Using the value sensitive design (VSD) approach to technology design, this paper extends its application to care robots by integrating the values of care, values that are specific to AI, and higher-scale values such as the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The ethical issues specific to care robots for the elderly are discussed at length alongside examples of specific design requirements that work to ameliorate these ethical concerns.

Highlights

The virus SARS-CoV-2 has uncovered fundamental inequalities in medical, social, economic and political domains across the globe
By focusing primarily on care robots for the elderly, this paper aims to provide a conceptual investigation of the ethical issues and human values that emerge within the framework of value sensitive design (VSD), and a principled approach to the design of technologies for human values (Friedman & Hendry, 2019)
By adopting the multi-tiered approach to AI design via VSD proposed by Umbrello and van de Poel (2021), this paper provides a thorough analysis of care robot design for the elderly, which more accurate maps onto the ethics of care proposed by van Wynsberghe (2013a, 2013b)

Summary

Introduction

The virus SARS-CoV-2 has uncovered fundamental inequalities in medical, social, economic and political domains across the globe. In the UK, researchers studying assisted living at HeriotWatt University in Edinburgh are employing co-design approaches to develop care robots to combat COVID care isolation (Macdonald, 2020). These recent examples are part of a larger trend in the automation and deployment of information and communication technologies (ICTs), and increasing use of robotics within the domain of care (Mordoch et al, 2013). Intervening at the design phase has been a long-standing position in the field of responsible innovation and has recently been the focus of various multinational governance and funding bodies (United Nations, 2019; van den Hoven & Jacob, 2013; van Lente et al, 2017)

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