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Short abstract:

Imaginaries of techno-science are a key to understand the forms of governance of AI and robotics. We conducted an analysis of Spanish newspapers over the last ten years that addressed AI and robotics in healthcare and studied the place that imaginaries of automated systems have in our daily life.

Long abstract:

The embedded material and semiotic network that sustain the complex regime of intelligibility of innovation in healthcare is mutating with the incorporation of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and robotics. This situation opens to new approaches to the bioethical debate that these incorporations are producing. In this framework, the imaginaries of techno-science are a key element in order to understand the current forms of governance of AI and robotics and the different strategies and development of specific innovations.

In order to grasp this space, in this work, we employed an empirical approach, conducting documentary analysis of content from Spanish newspapers over the last ten years that addressed AI and robotics in healthcare. Through thematic analysis, we identified continuities and discontinuities in how AI and robotics have been portrayed in the flow of specific technologies.

With this, the work allows for a discussion on the role of these imaginaries in the negotiation and assessment of the risks and uncertainties of automated systems and the specific actions taken to address them in formalised protocols and in our daily life.

Accordingly, the work participates in achieving a deeper understanding of the complex interplay between science, technology, media, ethics, and society. Ethical governance of AI and robotics implies the engagement and consideration of a wide, continuously mutating public that manages and negotiates different evolving imaginaries, in which the media play a fundamental role.