"At first glance, distribution centers or factories may seem an unlikely place to make use of care ethics, but I argue that the framework is needed anywhere human well-being is at stake. As made clear in reports from the last few years, a robotized workplace is certainly such a place. The objectification and dehumanization of industrial or retail workers are escalated by increasingly formalized and digitized methods of optimization."

Aimee van Wynsberghe, Sabine Roeser and I expand ethical discussion on human-robot collaboration in industrial settings to include: emotional impact on workers; effects of limited movement; the potential effects of working with one’s replacement; the ‘chilling effects’ of performance monitoring; the possibility for disclosure of new and unintended information through data collection; and the inability to challenge computerized decisions.

Nathan Rambukkana and I explore the tricky business of digital and physical consent with new haptic technologies.

Here’s an accessible explanation of care ethics and how it can be applied in engineering education. Share it with your students!

Part of a great 4TU.Ethics SURF project to make ethical theories more tangible to engineering students.

Sophia is designed to make people feel comfortable. This begs the questions: What bodies are deemed acceptable? What ways of speaking? Which bodies are ambassadors of the future? Who decides this?