Robot & Gran: Would you leave your ageing parent or grandparent in the care of a robot?

1. Background
2. Speaker Profiles
3. Recommended Resources

Background

For the first time in history, there are 11 million people aged 65 or over in the UK with 3 million people aged 80 or over. By 2050, estimates predict that the elderly will account for 16 percent of the global population.

Research suggests that about three–quarters of elderly people will develop a social care need, which can include anything from help getting up in the morning to round–the–clock support in a residential home. The number of younger, disabled adults is also predicted to rise, as medical advances mean many people with disabilities are living longer. Providing the most appropriate and effective forms of care (physically, emotionally and mentally) for these people will present an enormous challenge, so much so it is anticipated that there will be a shortage of professionals who are trained, equipped and willing to take on the responsibility.

It is increasingly likely that robots and artificial intelligence (AI) assisted appliances will take on the part of the role of care providers including meeting practical care needs, providing round–the–clock support and even providing a form of companionship.

Films such as Robot and Frank have helped us begin to imagine what the future could look like. Part of the inspiration behind the film came from Japan which currently has one of the world’s largest robot markets worth about 860bn yen (£5bn) in 2012. As the country’s demographic shifts to a much older population, compounded all the more by a falling birth rate, there will be increased demand for workers, especially in the care industry. Over 22 per cent of Japan’s population is currently aged 65 or older and many companies are working on robots that can assist the elderly, ranging from those which offer therapeutic care to those which can help move and carry objects. Within the next 20 years it is increasingly likely that robots will be used in the care of older adults throughout the developed world. This is a striking technological and social development with widespread but poorly understood implications for the society as a whole.

The optimum future is one in which the use of robotics will help older people live safer, healthier, more fulfilled and more connected lives. But the possible social, psychological and relational consequences of replacing human care with care provided by intelligent machines, particularly machines that are capable of simulating human emotional responses, are unknown. It is critically important that the psychological, philosophical and spiritual implications are considered and debated before robotic care assistants become ubiquitous.

Join us as we begin to explore and discuss this crucial question affecting the future of humanity.

• What are the key ethical and social issues which should be shaping the agenda concerning the future use of artificial intelligence and robotics in the care of the older person?
• How does this potentially impacts upon the ‘specialness’ of human life and human identity?
• How do you keep the human more important than the technology or is that becoming less important?

 

The event will consist of short speaker presentation followed by panel Q&A.

The event is FREE to attend but RSVPs are required. To register click here. 







Speaker Profiles

Professor Noel Sharkey

Noel is Professor of AI and Robotics and Professor of Public Engagement at the University of Sheffield and  was an EPSRC Senior Media Fellow (2004–2010).  He has held a number of research and teaching positions in the UK (Essex, Exeter, Sheffield) and the USA (Yale,and Stanford). 

Noel has moved freely across academic disciplines, lecturing in departments of  engineering, philosophy, psychology, cognitive science, linguistics, artificial intelligence and computer science. He holds a Doctorate in Experimental Psychology and a Doctorate of Science. He is a chartered electrical engineer, a chartered information technology professional and is a member of both the Experimental Psychology Society and Equity (the actor’s union). He has published well over a hundred academic articles and books as well writing for national newspaper and magazines. In addition to editing several journal special issues on modern robotics, Noel has been Editor–in–Chief of the journal Connection Science for 22 years and an editor of both Robotics and Autonomous Systems and Artificial Intelligence Review.

Noel appears regularly on TV (around 300 appearances) and is interviewed regularly on radio, in magazines and newspapers. He was chief judge for every series of Robot Wars throughout the world as well as “techspert” for 4 series of TechnoGames and co–presenter of Bright Sparks.

After many years of detailed research within Artificial Intelligence and robotics, Noel’s core research interest is now in the ethical application of robotics and AI in areas such as the military, child care, elder care, policing, surveillance, medicine/surgery, education and criminal/terrorist activity. He serves as an advisor to the think tank 2020Health, is a member of the Nuffield Foundation working group on the ethics of emerging biotechnologies, is a director for the European branch of the Centre for the Policy of Emerging Technologies and co–founder of the International Committee for Robot Arms control. Currently Noel is a Leverhulme Research Fellowship for the ethical and technical appraisal of Robots on the Battlefield.


Dr Heike Schmidt–Felzmann

Heike Felzmann is a lecturer in Philosophy/Ethics in the discipline of Philosophy at the School of Humanities, NUI Galway. She is affiliated to the Centre of Bioethical Research and Analysis (COBRA) at NUIG. Her area of specialisation is Bioethics, with focus on research ethics, health care ethics and most recently information ethics. She also works in moral theory, with focus on theory in/of Bioethics and has an interest in feminist ethics.

She is currently involved in a number of European projects: as leader of ethics deliverables in a H2020 project (MARIO) on assistive robotics for elderly with dementia, as member of a COST Action (CHIPME, IS1303) on Citizen’s Health through public–private Initiatives: Public health, Market and Ethical perspectives, and as subject expert in research ethics on a capacity building project (UNIVERSITARIA) for Romanian Universities. She is also part of a HEA funded project on digitally mediated interprofessional learning (IPL) in health care.


Professor Nigel Cameron

Chairman of Strategic Futures, LLC (Chicago, Illinois) and President of the Center for Policy on Emerging Technologies (C–PET, Washington, DC), Executive Chairman of BioCentre, Nigel Cameron has extensive experience leading high–level conversations focused on the future that cross disciplinary lines and bring together participants with diverse opinions and backgrounds.

A citizen of the United States and the UK, he has worked on both sides of the Atlantic and travels widely. In 2010–11 he addressed conferences on all five continents, including the biennial innovation festival hosted by Australian finance giant AMP in Sydney, where he was also invited to help shape the weeklong conversation; and Nanomedicine 2010 Beijing, where he moderated a conference track. He was the sole US–based plenary speaker at “the world’s leading conference on content marketing,” the 2011 Content Summit and a panellist at UN–affiliated Rio+20 Planet under Pressure event (London).

His unusually wide experience includes serving on U.S delegations to the UN General Assembly and UNESCO; three periods as an executive–in–residence at UBS Wolfsberg (Switzerland); testimony on technology policy and values issues before the U.S House and Senate, the European Parliament, the European Commission’s advisory Group on Ethics, the German Bundestag, and the UK Parliament; and co–chairing a nonpartisan panel that advised the UK Conservative Party on emerging technologies and health policy. In the early 2000s, he was an invited non–federal participant in the Department of State–led Project Horizon, 3–year scenario–based strategic planning process. He has appeared on network media in several countries, including in the U.S. ABC Nightline and PBS Frontline; and in the UK the BBC flagship shows Newsnight and Breakfast with Frost.


Lord McColl of Dulwich
Symposium room sponsor

Lord McColl was born in 1933 and educated at Hutchesons’ Grammar School, Glasgow, and St. Paul’s School, London where he won a Foundation Scholarship in Classics. He studied medicine at London University and was Professor of Surgery at Guy’s Hospital until 1998 and continues to teach at King’s College on the Guy’s Campus. He is also Surgeon to the international charity Mercyships and frequently operates in the poorest countries of West Africa.

He was a Surgeon to St Barthomew’s Hospital and Sub–Dean of the Medical College 1967–71; Research Fellow at Harvard 1967; Professor of Surgery at Guy’s Hospital 1971–98; Chairman of Government Working Party on ALAC Services 1986–87; and Vice–Chairman of Special Health Authority for ALAC Services 1987–91.

Lord McColl was made a Life Peer for his work for disabled people in the Queen’s Birthday Honours in 1989. He was Parliamentary Private Secretary to Prime Minister John Major from 1994–97. Since 1997, he has been a Shadow Minister for Health. He was made a CBE in 1997 and a Fellow of King’s College in 2001. For his charitable work for Mercyships, he received the Great Scot Award 2001 and the Distinguished Maritime Award of the National Maritime Association, USA 2002.

 

Resources

UK strategy for Robotics And Autonomous Systems 2015 roadmap