Ethical Dilemmas In Robot Care For The Elderly

Robots can assist in medical-related situations, for example, supplying and handling medication, reminding them to take medicine, or monitoring medicine usage. Additionally, they can act as a bridge for communication to doctors or nurses, and regularly inform and observe their health. Robots can provide physical assistance as well, such as household tasks including lifting, moving from one place to another, dressing, cooking, or cleaning. For instance, there is a robot developed by Riken called the Riba robot: “...it has a teddy bear face, and can pick up and carry humans from a bed to a wheelchair” (Sharkey & Sharkey, 2010, p. 32). Lastly, service robots may provide companionship and social interactions for elderly as a way to ease anxious feelings or isolation and loneliness. They may provide company, entertainment, or serve as a distraction. They can help them connect or communicate with family or friends who are distant or promote engagement in social activities such as conversations and companionship.

While robotic care may benefit the elderly in numerous ways, there also many downsides to their usage in elderly care. For instance, it has a number of weaknesses in comparison to human caregivers. Robots cannot provide the same level of interaction and care that a human carer would. Even with certain capabilities, such as simulated emotions or verbal interactions, they are extremely limited. Robot carers would not be able to provide a genuine human relationship in which a human can express love, attention, and emotion. Unlike humans, robots can only do what they are designed and programmed to do. Humans can provide reliable support because they can think for themselves and act accordingly to any situation that may occur. Furthermore, elderly people often find themselves deprived of a social life and lack daily human interactions as they age. Implementation of robots as a replacement of human carers will further reduce the amount of social interactions that an elderly person may face. For instance, some robots may allow virtual communication, which could lessen the amount of real visitations taking place. This could result in various mental health problems, such as depression or loneliness, and could make them feel as if they no longer have control over their lives. Depriving them from human contact could further diminish their health. This leads us to the many ethical concerns that are raised from the use of robot care.

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Not only could robots negatively impact the social aspects of an elderly person, it could also result in a violation of human rights and values. Privacy and security may be threatened as a result of implementing robots into their daily lives. Liability and safety issues are also a concern that arise from robot care. Failures or malfunctions in a robot carer could potentially pose risks of physical harm towards an elderly person. A lack of accountability for the robot could make it hard to identify who would be at fault if any accidents were to occur. Overall, the main ethical issues pertaining to robot care for the elderly include loss of social interaction, the violation of their rights, trust, and values, privacy and security risks, safety issues towards their health and well-being, and liability issues regarding who is responsible for the robots. These issues must be addressed to determine whether or not robotic care should truly be implemented into the livelihoods of elderly people.

The role of a service robot is to provide manual, repetitive tasks and assistance so that human caregivers can focus on other tasks. However, the capabilities of a robot to produce anything more than what they are designed to do is very limited. According to the article by Amanda Sharkley, elderly people have “...the right to a standard of living adequate for health and well-being; to private and family life; to freedom from torture and inhuman or degrading treatment...” (Sharkey & Sharkey, 2010, p. 27-28). Replacing robotic carers in place of human carers might diminish the human rights that an elderly person holds. The absence of human contact and having extensive presence of a non-human, robotic carer might negatively affect an elderly person’s well-being and mental health. A robot might be able to help assist an elderly person with simple tasks, like lifting or moving, but it lacks many characteristics that only a human can provide. According to Sharkey, “...a person’s psychological welfare is going to be affected by their physical needs failing to be met in this way” (Sharkey & Sharkey, 2010, p. 30). In other words, an elderly person who is cared for by a robot might not receive the same amount of benefits he or she might receive from a human caregiver. The capabilities of a robot carer might mislead people into believing that if a robot can take care of a person’s physical needs, then all other needs are also met. Just because there is a wide availability in the services a robotic carer may provide, it does not mean that the robot alone can provide sufficient enough care for an adequate standard of living. While robot carers may be used to help lessen the workload that must be done in elderly care, human caregivers are still a necessity to fully meet all the needs that an elderly person requires. If a robot carer cannot provide all the necessary care that an elderly person would need, then it would be a violation of their human rights to strip them from a human carer who could give them the standard of living that is suited for their health and well-being.

Additionally, to ensure the health and well-being of the elderly, their values and beliefs must be taken into account. Another ethical concern that comes with robot care is the fact that elderly people might not accept them. To implement robots without their approval would be ethically unjust and they could feel as if they have lost control over making their own decisions in their lives. Elderly people might not accept them due to fears or worries, or simply just rejecting the use of robots over an actual human. Introducing a robotic carer might easily cause distraught, stress, or fears that could result in unintended consequences to their mental well-being. Another significant concern is that they might feel objectified, or view themselves as just another mere object rather than an actual human. According to Parvianinen and Pirhonen, they define objectification as “...treating people as mere physical objects to be pushed, lifted, pumped or drained without proper reference to their lived bodies” (Parviainen & Pirhonen, 2017, p. 109). If robot carers were used in place of humans to carry out routine, manual tasks such as feeding, lifting, or cleaning, it could make an elderly person feel as if he is an object. It could diminish their own value, happiness, and dignity, and it could even be dehumanizing to the elderly person.

In addition, elderly people may feel as if they have loss their freedom and independence. While robot carers are aimed to allow elderly people to be more mobile and independent for themselves, they might just have the opposite effect. Many robots within an elderly environment would be designed to monitor and ensure safety for the elderly. For instance, a robot could detect and warn an older person about potential dangerous situations like leaving the stove on or preventing an elderly person from climbing up on a chair. These approaches seem like appropriate steps to take in order to protect elderly people from harming themselves. However, it may also introduce ethical issues about the loss of their freedom. A robot might restrain an individual from certain activities in which it believes is unsafe, for example, leaving his room at night, and therefore would automatically lock the door. How can we trust the robot to make the correct decisions on what is actually a dangerous situation or not? These restrictions may make an elderly person feel like his or her freedom has been taken away, and they could feel as if they were imprisoned within their own home. While the physical needs might be met by using a robot, their social and emotional needs would be neglected. This could have a negative impact on their well-being because it will directly affect their emotional needs and reduce their quality of life.

With the progression in robotic advancements, along with it comes many technological risks. One of the responsibilities that a robotic caregiver may provide is the capability of surveillance or monitoring of the elderly person. A robot carer may be used to monitor and record information regarding an individual’s health, safety, and behavior. Also, robot carers may be assigned to physical tasks, such as household work like cleaning, cooking, or lifting and moving objects. To perform tasks, robot carers might be remote-controlled or designed to function using detectors. For example, a robot known as uBot5 is designed for several tasks, such as, “...used for social telepresence, since it can be remotely controlled by authorised users over the internet, allowing a virtual visit and two way conversation...” (Sharkey & Sharkey, 2010, p. 31). As with all robots, security threats are an evident problem. A robot carer may be able to traverse throughout the house and virtually relay all of its surrounding information. They are equipped with hardware such as cameras, sensors, microphones, and so on. This ability to monitor and collect data is at risk of cyber-related attacks, such as hackers who could potentially gain unauthorized access to retrieve that private data. This leads to many ethical concerns within privacy and security. The risk that comes with surveillance of the elderly may be infringing their rights in privacy. The use of robots within elderly care may lead to exposure to sensitive, private data that the elderly would not want shared. For instance, video and audio data of the elderly person may be leaked or viewed by unauthorized individuals. Information about their lifestyle and position, personal property or belongings, health status, and other details in which elderly person might not want shared could be disclosed. An elderly person may not consent to having their information being collected for supervision. Also, an ethical dilemma regarding the collection of data would be who would have access to that information, and the length in which it would be stored. Would family members be allowed to access the information? What level of authorization would an employee at a care center need in order to retrieve the information? The right to privacy is a fundamental human right, and the usage of robotic carers may potentially put that right at risk.

In addition to risks of privacy, threats to safety and security in robot care may also lead to potential physical and psychological harm on the elderly. Robots in elder care may be utilized to perform physical interactions like lifting or moving a person or following a person around. They might be able to operate autonomously in certain tasks, and therefore, would not need to be administered by other human beings. These activities could place the elderly person in unpredictable and dangerous situations. Similar to privacy risks, the robots are prone to cyber-threats in which a hacker may obtain unauthorized access to the robot’s features. These features could potentially be exploited or re-programmed and configured, which could put the elderly person at risk of physical harm. Likewise, robots are susceptible to unexpected failure or malfunctions, which could lead to serious incidents as well. For example, a robot used to lift an elderly person may malfunction and lift the person up too fast, bump them into a wall, or drop them unknowingly which could result in injury. A robot that is responsible for monitoring an elderly person may fail to notify doctors or nurses about changing health statuses. Overall, the robots may fail in its ability to effectively provide proper care for the elderly because of the safety and security issues that come with it. Therefore, it would not be as reliable or safe to associate it with an elderly person who is vulnerable or in poor health as compared to a human caregiver. These issues on safety are an ethical concern because it poses the question of whether or not robot care should even be utilized in an elderly care environment. These issues also bring up concerns with whether or not a robot caregiver should be left alone with an elderly person without any human supervision. While service robots may introduce a variety of benefits, they may also present numerous potential safety and security vulnerabilities to the elderly. Knowing these risks, robot care would be a challenge to implement because of the many ethical issues that are introduced.

Similar to issues with the safety and security pertaining to robot care, many ethical concerns of liability and accountability are introduced. A goal of robot care would be to provide assistance for the elderly so that they can be more independent for themselves. It allows them to be more mobile and do daily tasks on their own without the constant need for human caregivers. However, many ethical questions are brought up in this situation. For instance, if an elderly person is given control over the robot, how much control should he or she be given? Giving the elderly more control over the robot carer would empower them to be more independent and rely less on another human caregiver. This could be beneficial for their mental health and protecting their independence. On the other hand, if an elderly person is given too much control, what would happen if he or she commanded the robot to cause physical harm? Likewise, it brings up the question of liability. Who would be held responsible if an incident occurs in which an elderly person is in control of the robot? That same question can be brought up if the robot carer was provided by a care center or operated by a human caregiver. Who would be liable for the unintended consequences made by the robot’s actions that might inflict damage or harm? Furthermore, if autonomous robots were implemented, it would bring up similar issues of accountability. Autonomous robots that make decisions based on their predictions of the situation could be defective or make wrong decisions resulting in dangerous outcomes. Overall, there would be a lack of accountability when using robotics in a care environment, and that poses an ethical dilemma on how deeply robot care should be integrated into an elderly care environment.

While the implementation of robot care for the elderly comes with many clear and distinct ethical concerns, it does not mean that these ethical questions can not be answered. In order to gain the most out of robot care, there must be a balance between utilizing the robot for it’s convenience, assistance, and usefulness while also securing the safety and security of the elderly people and protecting their physical, mental, and social health and well-being. The ethical theory of deontology could be taken into consideration to evaluate the ethical questions posed by robotic care. In duty-based deontology, it views the morals within actions rather than the outcome produced. It argues that it is a person’s duty to carry out what is morally right for another human being. In robot care, replacing humans entirely with robot carers would lessen the burden on human caregivers. However, it would not be entirely beneficial for the elderly people. For instance, it could negatively impact their physical, social, or mental health. Ethical concerns about privacy, safety, security, and liability also comes forth. Additionally, human caregivers may lose their employment. It would be an immoral course of action to take because it would deprive the elderly from certain human values and it could cause unintended pain and suffering, either physically or psychologically. It is a moral obligation to protect the fundamental rights of another human being. If using robots in such a way might deprive an elderly person of their rights, safety, or quality of life, it would not be morally just. Therefore, it would make sense to use robot care alongside human caregivers rather than entirely replacing them. This would reduce the burden on human caregivers so they can focus more on other important responsibilities, while also providing the proper care for the elderly to maintain an adequate quality of life.

Ultimately, the use of robot care for the elderly has presented many advantages and disadvantages. Robots in elder care promise positive contributions for human caregivers and the elderly. They could provide assistance and support to further improve the physical and mental health of the elderly. It could increase their mobility and independence, and allow for better communication with doctors and nurses and family and friends. While it may bring forth a variety of benefits, it would be wrong not to take into consideration the ethical concerns that come with it. Ethical issues within robot care include technological risks, such as privacy and security may be threatened. Safety and liability issues pertaining to elderly are also introduced. Their social and emotional needs might not be entirely met, and many of their human rights, such as freedom and liberty, might be violated. To find the answer to the ethical dilemma of whether or not robots should be used and how they should be used in a care environment, one could look at the ethical theory of deontology. Overall, in order to reach the full potential of robot care, and ensure that all the essential needs for the elderly are met, it would be reasonable to divide the responsibilities between robotics and humans, and not use robotic care as a complete substitute for human interaction. Using robots will provide greater benefits in elder care, but humans are still needed as the backbone in order for it to succeed. Additionally, regulations or guidelines could be implemented to identify and address the ethical issues that come with robots. Once these ethical concerns of robots are properly handled and considered, only then would robotic care be used to effectively improve the livelihoods of the elderly.