Speakers
Technology for Health Senior Research Scientist at Fundació Sant Joan de DéuChief Scientific Officer at LIGHTHOUSE
Conducting responsible research and innovation with social assistive robots in healthcare
New techniques in Life Science treatment based on big data and Machine Learning empowered new digital interfaces to appear as a promising solution to provide universal access to continuity care. However, these intelligent machines suffer from similar imperfections as humans, i.e., accuracy and bias. When we are designing new field studies using Social Assistive Robots, we need to consider not only the legal framework but also people’s perception of the system’s actions. We need to understand how humans judge if the system is ethically correct or not because this will determine if the research is socially approved or rejected. An approach to how to conduct responsible research and innovation with Social Assistive Robots is considering multiple moral dimensions involving harm, fairness, loyalty, authority, and purity.
In this talk I am going to introduce different real scenarios where social assistive robots are used in a research environment applied to health and wellbeing, and how this research is compliant or not with the multiple moral dimension approach.
Ansari Innovación Social
Towards a governance of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics
The future of our society depends on finding the right balance between technological development and human rights protection. The international framework for protecting human rights could be applied against discriminatory impacts caused by robotics and AI. States should take targeted measures to ensure that discrimination in the exercise of rights is eliminated, and regularly assess whether the measures chosen are effective in practice.
The assumption that the design, deploying machine learning systems, development and use of responsible technology is a shared responsibility by the States and private actors has led to the setting of Codes of Ethics and standards under the auspices of several organizations, such as the Toronto Declaration. However, the more effective way for promoting a solid protection for future robotics and AI concerns, relies at a firm level, and specially, through the design of a compliance system in line with other existing compliance systems in corporate governance and according to the principles and values of Corporate Social Responsibility.
Helena_Ancos_Congreso Noviembre.pdf
Lessons from the RRING Project
At the European level, the Responsible Research and Innovation approach tries to foster social engagement, ethics, open access, science education, and gender equality through better governance of Science, Technology, and Innovation (STI). The RRING project tries to monitor RRI advancements in all regions adding to these pillars cultural and contextual aspects to link up RRI to the global world. It also aims at building a knowledge database supporting RRI competitive advantage in the 4 targeted sectors (including ICTs) and efficiency towards SDG´s attainment (WP 6 lead by UNESCO). However, the translation from policy to practice, grounding RRI approach in research institutions is not a simple task as it requires transforming mindsets of researchers and innovators. The GRRIP project will self-assessed institutions, co-develop and implement RRI Action Plans in 5 Marine and Maritime RPOs (including PLOCAN in Spain) to promote mutual learning on institutional and cultural change.
The lessons and experiences from these two European projects can serve to showcase advantages, limitations, and challenges of the RRI approach in other high public interest attractive sectors as the robotics.
Bio
Ms. Juliana Chaves-Chaparro is an Environmental scientist working as consultant on STI policies and Responsible Research and Innovation in UNESCO. With extensive experience in the co-design of research and innovation policies in developing countries and Africa in particular ( see latest UNESCO publication on Co-designing science in Africa), the ethical and cultural aspects of R&I have been proof key to promote sustainable transformation and attain SDGs.
Mohamad Nadim Adi
Towards inclusive design, exploring dementia-friendly hospital design in Canada
Architecture is traditionally associated with stability, sturdiness, and anchoring, but it is more than a container protecting users from the elements. It is a place that influences the state of mind and productivity of those within it. With the advancement of technology, it is now possible to use virtual reality to investigate the impact of different designs on users’ performance and safety; without compromising the safety of its users or incurring the expense of a building. This research focused on investigating the use of aspects of virtual reality to answer this question. It is motivated by simulation in architectural design, assessing the effect of different design aspects on users’ responses and performance by exposing test subjects to different design scenarios using virtual reality. This work touches on the potential use of virtual reality to evaluate different building and design types ranging from workspaces to hospitals by evaluating existing literature and performing live experiments to assess the reaction of users to such spaces. We focus on studying one of the most vulnerable groups in society, people with dementia. It is our belief that inclusive design should cover all groups within society and that with more focus on such groups we can build a better and more efficient architecture that can actively contribute to healing.
Bio
Dr. Mohamad Nadim Adi completed his doctoral studies in the field of virtual reality, having obtained his undergraduate degree and Master’s in architecture. Combining these two fields, he developed a passion to understand and test new buildings and building materials through the use of virtual reality. Dr. Adi has studied how people respond to different types of built environments using various virtual platforms as a medium. He worked in several universities around the globe, in the fields of high-rise wood buildings, hospital design, dementia and elderly friendly design, and interactive architecture. He joined the University of Alberta to apply his extensive knowledge of this area in the establishment of a virtual reality laboratory for multi-disciplinary research in construction. His research has several potential inter-disciplinary applications involving health, education, and ergonomics. He is an assistant professor in the department of interior architecture and environmental design at Bilkent university and is the current chair of the international consortium of research staff associations (ICoRSA).
Álvaro Falcón Pulido
PhD Candidate at Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM) on Tax and RobotsTax incentives as a way to promote RRI in robotics
Tax incentives are often used for extra-fiscal purposes, and can be used to promote responsible research and innovation in robotics. This article explores the possibility of conditioning tax incentives to research and development to an obligation to carry it out with an approach that anticipates and assesses its potential implications and societal expectations. These fiscal tools can be transitory measures that help to correct the technological gap of workers by improving their training, making them participate in some of the profits of the robots and also protect their existing jobs.