AI/robotic healthcare technologies offer promising solutions for aging populations but raise safety and ethical concerns, prompting a reflection on ensuring these technologies enhance quality care. The talk emphasises the need for safe, useful technology developed through inclusive research methods.
Long abstract:
With aging populations and strained healthcare systems, AI and robotic healthcare technologies offer promising solutions but also raise safety and ethical concerns. This talk prompts reflection on the essence of care and the roles of different stakeholders in ensuring technology enhances what is considered "good quality care” by care recipients and caregivers. Drawing from ethnographic research she conducted in Japan and the UK for 18 months in 2022-2024, De Togni emphasises how caregiving is a fundamental human activity requiring empathy, and questions how robots may fit into this space. De Togni addresses two main issues with the introduction of these technologies in healthcare practices: 1) How to ensure the technology is safe and useful; and 2) How to integrate the perspectives of end-users in early technology development. She concludes that more inclusive participatory research methods are needed to develop safe, effective, and acceptable healthcare solutions involving the deployment of AI and robots in care practices.