The empathic care robot: A prototype of responsible research and innovation

Science fiction prototypes are often used to visualise or represent novel technologies or other techno-scientific innovations. The present paper follows this tradition and describes a prototype of a care robot that is endowed with affective capabilities. The paper describes some of the potential ethical problems arising from such a technology. This aspect of the paper is based on prior research in a European-funded technology foresight project that explored the ethical issues of emerging ICTs. The paper goes beyond the description of technical innovation and its ethical consequences. The recognition of the ethical relevance of research and innovation has spawned a discourse around responsible research and innovation. The paper draws on this discourse, which aims at anticipatory technology governance to ensure the social acceptability and desirability of technologies. The prototype vignette of the paper explores how responsible research and innovation could be realised in practice and how it could be used to address ethical issues such as those of affective care robots. The paper reflects the likely controversies that responsible research and innovation is likely to create and it uses the ethical dilemma of the care robot to draw the reader's attention to possible theoretical and practical conclusions.