Roboticists' Imaginaries of Robots for Care : The Radical Imaginary as a Tool for an Ethical Discussion
Vallès-Peris, Núria (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Departament de Psicologia Social)
Domènech i Argemí, Miquel (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Departament de Psicologia Social)

Date:	2020
Abstract:	In this paper we analyse imaginaries about care robots using a set of interviews with roboticists. The study of imaginaries-from a notion close to that of Castoriadis's radical imaginary-is used as a tool to unravel ethical, political and social concerns that care robots entail. From the analysis of the interviews, our results highlight that imaginaries regarding care robots are predominantly sustained by a social process of care fragmentation. The translation of the imaginary of industry robots into the wildness of the daily life in healthcare reconfigures the comprehension of robots and their mediations. This process is intensively linked to Human Robot Collaboration (HRC) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) imaginaries of care, based on the cult of domesticity and the opposition of human caring to rational caring. We see how these fragmentations are in tension with an approach that seeks to integrate the ethics of care with technoscience, which has relevant consequences for the ethical debate on care robotics and the political significance of care in our world.
Note:	This work was supported by 'la Caixa' Foundation under Grant LCF/PR/RC17/10110004. The authors declare no conflict of interest. The funders had no role in the design of the study; in the collection, analyses, or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript, or in the decision to publish the results.
Rights:	Aquest document està subjecte a una llicència d'ús Creative Commons. Es permet la reproducció total o parcial, la distribució, la comunicació pública de l'obra i la creació d'obres derivades, fins i tot amb finalitats comercials, sempre i quan es reconegui l'autoria de l'obra original.
Language:	Anglès
Document:	Article ; recerca ; Versió acceptada per publicar
Subject:	Care robots ; Roboticists ; Imaginaries ; Fragmentation of care ; Ethics of care
Published in:	Engineering Studies, Vol. 12 Núm. 3 (2020) , p. 157-176, ISSN 1940-8374

DOI: 10.1080/19378629.2020.1821695

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