Paper short abstract:

Human-machine interaction is gaining increasing importance in healthcare. While ethical considerations usually center around potential risks to the patient, the Cybernics approach to the robotic rehabilitation system HAL implements a capability-oriented approach aiming at human empowerment.

Paper long abstract:

With the development of robotics-based technologies for human healthcare, human-machine interaction is gaining increasing importance. Corresponding ethical considerations usually concern the condition of impaired humans and potential risks regarding the patient's integrity. Engineering and related ethical approaches beyond stances prevailing in countries in Europe or America are easily disregarded. This paper investigates the Cybernics approach to the robotic rehabilitation system HAL (Hybrid Assistive Limb) as a socio-technological conception of human-machine relations. Contrary to common individualistic conceptions, this heterarchical approach to empowerment technologies (ET) builds on an intrinsic relation between human and machine, thereby considering machines primarily a supplement and not a threat to impaired humans. This leads to the question of how ET are constructed and legitimized in Japan, and what relationship between humans and machines is envisioned in the context of healthcare. In referencing Society 5.0 as the developmental framework for ET in Japan, the Cybernics approach to ET as employed at the University of Tsukuba and a case study of the HAL system as enabling an interactive unity of human and machine show that the socio-technological conception proposes a capability-oriented approach with built-in ethics, hence offering a complementary view to prevailing accounts of human-machine relations.