Robots for Care: A Few Considerations from the Social Sciences

According to the scientific and technical literature, there is a continuous and significant increase of the importance of robots in the economy and society. Most of those robots are produced to cover industry needs, thinking of the robot as a substitute for human beings. They are supposed to improve the quality of work by taking over dangerous, tedious and dirty jobs that are not possible or safe for humans to perform. Thus, most of the envisaged scenarios do not foresee the need to take into consideration how to manage the social interaction between human and robot; once the robot is placed, the human being disappears from the scene. Nevertheless, the idea that robots can cover other human needs than those related to industry has also gained ground and new concerns and debates are taking place. Robots appear in environments that would have seemed unexpected not long ago, assuming duties traditionally assigned to humans. In this vein, we are witnessing an increasing expectation of advances in robotics and artificial intelligence. The possibility of involving robots in caring tasks seems closer than ever. There are pilot experiences with robots and older people, robots working in therapy for children with autism or robots in hospitals enrolled in a variety of tasks.