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

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alberto Pirni ◽  
Maurizio Balistreri ◽  
Marianna Capasso ◽  
Steven Umbrello ◽  
Federica Merenda
Keyword(s):  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Elderly Care ◽  
Autonomous Systems ◽  
Care Ethics ◽  
Ethical Framework ◽  
Healthcare Sector ◽  
Care Robots ◽  
Ethical Design ◽  
Technological Developments ◽  
Traditional Approaches

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.

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

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven Umbrello ◽  
Marianna Capasso ◽  
Maurizio Balistreri ◽  
Alberto Pirni ◽  
Federica Merenda
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development Goals ◽  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Elderly Care ◽  
The Elderly ◽  
Value Sensitive Design ◽  
Ethical Concerns ◽  
Care Robots ◽  
Development Goals ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Design Requirements

AbstractHealthcare 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.

scholarly journals Ethical Framework for Designing Autonomous Intelligent Systems

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jaana Leikas ◽  
Raija Koivisto ◽  
Nadezhda Gotcheva
Keyword(s):  
Intelligent Systems ◽  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Autonomous Systems ◽  
Ethical Principles ◽  
Ethical Framework ◽  
Concept Design ◽  
Systematic Analysis ◽  
Ethical Thought ◽  
Multidisciplinary Perspective ◽  
Fundamental Values

To gain the potential benefit of autonomous intelligent systems, their design and development need to be aligned with fundamental values and ethical principles. We need new design approaches, methodologies and processes to deploy ethical thought and action in the contexts of autonomous intelligent systems. To open this discussion, this article presents a review of ethical principles in the context of artificial intelligence design, and introduces an ethical framework for designing autonomous intelligent systems. The framework is based on an iterative, multidisciplinary perspective yet a systematic discussion during an Autonomous Intelligent Systems (AIS) design process, and on relevant ethical principles for the concept design of autonomous systems. We propose using scenarios as a tool to capture the essential user’s or stakeholder’s specific qualitative information, which is needed for a systematic analysis of ethical issues in the specific design case.

scholarly journals After COVID-19: The Way We Die from Now On

2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-72
Author(s):  
ANNA MAGDALENA ELSNER
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Palliative Care ◽  
End Of Life Care ◽  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Care Ethics ◽  
World Health ◽  
Ethical Framework ◽  
Life Care ◽  
The World ◽  
The Way

AbstractEthical issues raised by the outbreak of COVID-19 have predominantly been addressed through a public health ethics lens. This article proposes that the rising COVID-19 fatalities and the World Health Organization’s failure to include palliative care as part of its guidance on how to maintain essential health services during the pandemic have exposed palliative care as an underlying global crisis. It therefore calls for a different ethical framework that includes a care ethics perspective and thereby addresses the ways in which the pandemic has triggered new difficulties in ensuring the delivery of appropriate end-of-life care for the dying. The article analyses the structural weaknesses of palliative care accentuated by the pandemic and proposes solutions that could set in motion lasting changes in the way it is delivered beyond COVID-19.

Confronting the grey zone after severe brain injury

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (6) ◽  
pp. 707-711 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Peterson ◽  
Adrian M. Owen
Keyword(s):  
Brain Injury ◽  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Vegetative State ◽  
Clinical Care ◽  
Grey Zone ◽  
Severe Brain Injury ◽  
New Methods ◽  
Legal Decision Making ◽  
Technological Developments ◽  
The Brain

In recent years, rapid technological developments in the field of neuroimaging have provided several new methods for revealing thoughts, actions and intentions based solely on the pattern of activity that is observed in the brain. In specialized centres, these methods are now being employed routinely to assess residual cognition, detect consciousness and even communicate with some behaviorally non-responsive patients who clinically appear to be comatose or in a vegetative state. In this article, we consider some of the ethical issues raised by these developments and the profound implications they have for clinical care, diagnosis, prognosis and medical-legal decision-making after severe brain injury.

The Changing Nature of Knowledge and Service Work in the Age of Intelligent Machines

2020 ◽  
pp. 343-368
Author(s):  
Crispin Coombs ◽  
Donald Hislop ◽  
Stanimira Taneva ◽  
Sarah Barnard
Keyword(s):  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Work Practice ◽  
Academic Disciplines ◽  
Service Work ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Human Capabilities ◽  
Academic Knowledge ◽  
Intelligent Machines ◽  
Technological Developments ◽  
The Impact

One of the most significant recent technological developments concerns the application of intelligent machines to jobs that up to now have been considered safe from automation. These changes have generated considerable debate regarding the impacts that the widespread adoption of intelligent machines could have on the nature of work. This chapter provides a thematic review, across multiple academic disciplines, of the current state of academic knowledge regarding the impact of intelligent machines on knowledge and service work. Adopting a work-practice perspective, the chapter reviews the extant literature concerning changing relations between workers and intelligent machines, the adoption and acceptance of intelligent machines, and ethical issues associated with greater machine human collaboration. A key finding is that much of the research discusses intelligent machines complementing and extending human capabilities rather than removing humans from work processes. The concept of augmentation of humans and human work, rather than wholesale replacement from automation, flows through the literature across a range of domains. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the main gaps in existing knowledge and ways in which future research may provide a deeper understanding of how people (currently and in the near future) experience intelligent machines in their day-to-day work practice. These include the need for multi-disciplinary research, the role of contexts, the need for more and better empirical research, the changing relationships between humans and intelligent machines, the adoption and acceptance of the technology, and ethical issues.

scholarly journals Ethics as a Service: A Pragmatic Operationalisation of AI Ethics

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica Morley ◽  
Anat Elhalal ◽  
Francesca Garcia ◽  
Libby Kinsey ◽  
Jakob Mökander ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Ethics Codes ◽  
Practical Design ◽  
Ethical Design ◽  
Ai Ethics ◽  
Algorithmic Design ◽  
Almost All ◽  
Technical Guidance ◽  
Tools And Methods

AbstractAs the range of potential uses for Artificial Intelligence (AI), in particular machine learning (ML), has increased, so has awareness of the associated ethical issues. This increased awareness has led to the realisation that existing legislation and regulation provides insufficient protection to individuals, groups, society, and the environment from AI harms. In response to this realisation, there has been a proliferation of principle-based ethics codes, guidelines and frameworks. However, it has become increasingly clear that a significant gap exists between the theory of AI ethics principles and the practical design of AI systems. In previous work, we analysed whether it is possible to close this gap between the ‘what’ and the ‘how’ of AI ethics through the use of tools and methods designed to help AI developers, engineers, and designers translate principles into practice. We concluded that this method of closure is currently ineffective as almost all existing translational tools and methods are either too flexible (and thus vulnerable to ethics washing) or too strict (unresponsive to context). This raised the question: if, even with technical guidance, AI ethics is challenging to embed in the process of algorithmic design, is the entire pro-ethical design endeavour rendered futile? And, if no, then how can AI ethics be made useful for AI practitioners? This is the question we seek to address here by exploring why principles and technical translational tools are still needed even if they are limited, and how these limitations can be potentially overcome by providing theoretical grounding of a concept that has been termed ‘Ethics as a Service.’

The Nonlinear Roll Damping of a FPSO Hull

2013 ◽  
Vol 136 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Allan C. de Oliveira ◽  
Antonio Carlos Fernandes
Keyword(s):  
Nonlinear Damping ◽  
Challenging Problem ◽  
Roll Damping ◽  
Ship Hulls ◽  
Damping Behavior ◽  
Industry Standards ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Technological Developments ◽  
Traditional Approaches ◽  
The 19Th Century

The ship-rolling problem is a subject that has been studied for a long time. Since Froude's time (in the 19th century) to nowadays, this subject was revisited several times in order to adjust the theory to changes in ship hulls, dimensions, materials, appendages, etc. On the other hand, ship analysis technological resources, including both experimental techniques and computational capacity (that did not exist in Froude's time), have also amazingly improved. But despite all those technological developments, the assessment of the nonlinear roll damping of some types of hulls still is a challenging problem. The floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) hull fitted with larger bilge keels, for instance, has behaved in such a way that it is impossible to obtain results from nowadays industry standards via decaying tests. This paper discusses an alternative way to assess the nonlinear damping behavior of FPSO hulls with large bilge keels. Since it is fairly easy to perform decaying tests, the paper also proposes an alternative way to analyze the FPSO properties through this kind of testing by grouping multiple results instead of using only a single test. This artifice brought improvements, such as an increased agreement between the alternative model and the experimental data. The paper also compares the more traditional approaches with the alternative method and finally shows the latter's applicability.

Ethics and equity in rare disease research and healthcare

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Koromina ◽  
Vasileios Fanaras ◽  
Gareth Baynam ◽  
Christina Mitropoulou ◽  
George P Patrinos
Keyword(s):  
Rare Diseases ◽  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Genetic Diseases ◽  
Ethical Framework ◽  
Middle Income ◽  
Next Generation Sequencing Technology ◽  
Ethical Frameworks ◽  
Rare Genetic Diseases ◽  
Conducting Research ◽  
Key Aspects

Rapid advances in next-generation sequencing technology, particularly whole exome sequencing and whole genome sequencing, have greatly affected our understanding of genetic variation underlying rare genetic diseases. Herein, we describe ethical principles of guiding consent and sharing of genomics research data. We also discuss ethical dilemmas in rare diseases research and patient recruitment policies and address bioethical and societal aspects influencing the ethical framework for genetic testing. Moreover, we focus on addressing ethical issues surrounding research in low- and middle-income countries. Overall, this perspective aims to address key aspects and issues for building proper ethical frameworks, when conducting research involving genomics data with a particular emphasis on rare diseases and genetics testing.

scholarly journals Developing robots: The need for an ethical framework

European View ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alex Leveringhaus
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Human Dignity ◽  
Ethical Framework ◽  
Foreseeable Future ◽  
Policy Level ◽  
Technological Developments ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Ethical Approaches ◽  
Robotic Technologies

This article discusses the need for an ethical framework for emerging robotic technologies. The temptation, arguably driven by sci-fi treatments of artificial intelligence, is to ask whether future robots should be considered quasi-humans. This article argues that such sci-fi scenarios have little relevance for current technological developments in robotics, nor for ethical approaches to the subject: for the foreseeable future robots will merely be useful tools. In response to emerging robotic technologies, this article proposes an ethical framework that makes a commitment to human rights, human dignity and responsibility a central priority for those developing robots. At a policy level, this entails (1) assessing whether the use of particular robots would result in human rights violations and (2) creating adequate institutions through which human individuals can be held responsible for what robots do.

scholarly journals Ethical Issues of Organ Transplantation in Islam

1970 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-103
Author(s):  
M Mostafa Kamal
Keyword(s):  
Organ Donation ◽  
Organ Transplantation ◽  
Islamic Law ◽  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Ethical Framework ◽  
Value Systems ◽  
Proxy Consent ◽  
Advantages And Disadvantages ◽  
The World ◽  
The Impact

Scientists and clinicians must become familiar with the factors that affect the emotional, physical, and spiritual health of their patients that are outside the ken of the traditionally dominant value systems. Although many researchers have addressed the cultural and ethnical factors, very few have considered the impact of religion. Islam, as the largest and fastestgrowing religion in the world, has adherents throughout the world, presents a complete moral, ethical, and medical framework, while it sometimes concurs conflicts with the conventional and secular ethical framework. This paper introduces to the Islamic principles of ethics in organ transplantation involving human subject to address issues of religion and religious ethics. Historical reflections are discussed as to why Muslim thinkers were late to consider contemporary medical issues such as organ donation. Islam respects life and values need of the living over the dead, thus allowing organ donation to be considered in certain circumstances. The sources of Islamic law are discussed in brief to see how the parameters of organ transplantation are derived. The Islamic perception, both Shiite and Sunni, is examined in relation to organ donation and its various sources. The advantages and disadvantages of brain dead and cadaveric donation are reviewed with technical and ethical considerations. The Islamic concept of brain death, informed and proxy consent are also discussed. The concept of rewarded donation as a way to alleviate the shortage of organs available for transplantation is assessed.    doi: 10.3329/taj.v21i1.3230 TAJ 2008; 21(1): 97-103

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