Risk Prevention and Policy-Making in Automatic Systems

Accidents with automatic production systems are reported to be on the order of one in a hundred or thousand robot-years, while fatal accidents are found to occur one or two orders of magnitude less frequently. Traditions in occupational safety tend to seek for safety targets in terms of zero severe accidents for automatic systems. Decision-making requires a risk assessment balancing potential risk reduction measures and costs within the cultural environment of a production company. This paper presents a simplified procedure which acts as a decision tool. The procedure is based on a risk concept approaching prevention both in a deterministic and in a probabilistic manner. Eight accident scenarios are shown to represent the potential accident processes involving robot interactions with people. Seven prevention policies are shown to cover the accident scenarios in principle. An additional probabilistic approach may indicate which extra safety measures can be taken against what risk reduction and additional costs. The risk evaluation process aims at achieving a quantitative acceptable risk level. For that purpose, three risk evaluation methods are discussed with respect to reaching broad consensus on the safety targets.     

Electric animals: New models of everyday life?

The literature on everyday life has only imperfectly taken to itself the influence of modern information and communications technology, generally through the work of authors like Benjamin and the lettristes like de Certeau and Virilio. Part of the reason for this relative absence seems to be a concern that these technologies are, in some way, inauthentic. But such a reaction is no longer adequate. As software plasters the everyday world with a new and active surface, so the character of the everyday world is being changed. This change is based on theoretical models of the world that are written into software and which have as one of their key roots particular notions of biology. How can one understand this new kind of everyday life in which theoretical models of biology come back to haunt the surfaces that define us as they are incorporated in all manner of increasingly ‘lively’ devices? Obviously, a series of characterizations could be made but this paper proposes that one of the best of these may turn out to be that of the companion animal. Everyday life is chock full of these animals yet they too are hardly ever remarked upon in the literature: their strange familiarity is so obvious that they are deemed to be unworthy of notice. However, as software makes the world increasingly lively, perhaps we should start to think of its agency, especially as it is incarnated in various increasingly mobile objects, as calling forth similar kinds of relationship of dominance and affection – and a pressing ethical task.     

《机器人学》课程教学改革探讨

《机器人学》是一门与科技发展紧密结合的多学科交叉的综合性学科。结合《机器人学》的课程特点与其他院校教学改革的先进经验,从教学内容、教学方法、考评方式三方面分析了目前该课程教学存在的问题,并分别提出了具有建设性的改革方案,部分方案在过去两年的教学工作中进行实践,取得了良好的教学效果。     

E-social work and at-risk populations: technology and robotics in social intervention with elders. The case of Spain

Information and communication technologies are increasingly relevant. Finding a sphere of activity that is isolated from technological advancement proves increasingly difficult, and social work is no exception. Therefore, given the socio-demographic and technological context for this sector in Spain, we must face and tackle new challenges. Focusing exclusively on the elderly, e-social work highlights new skills and abilities that can be developed by means of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), which are viewed as powerful tools that can guarantee egalitarian access to an improved life standard. Nevertheless, despite the digital divide growing smaller, its impact on people over 75 is still significant; hence, we need to use every tool at our disposal to reduce it to the bare minimum. With that purpose in mind, this article discusses usability, the causes of unequal access to ICTs, technological gerontological pedagogy and robotics as forward-looking technology. The aim is to technologically enable the senior population by adapting the necessary interfaces for an easier interaction; likewise, online intervention also aims for the utilization of alternative technologies. Technology has completely changed the world we live in pushing us to a new approach towards old age, fragility and chronicity. ICTs in social intervention must be a true source of opportunities to further social cohesion.     

Gendering a Warbot

Recently, the United States Defense Advanced Project Agency (DARPA) hosted its “Robotics Challenge.” The explicit goal of this challenge is to develop robots capable of “executing complex tasks in dangerous, degraded, human engineered environments.” However, the competitors’ choice to build humanoid robots tells a different narrative. In particular, through the physical design choices, the giving of names and the tasking of roles, the competing teams perpetuated a gendered narrative. This narrative in turn reifies gendered norms of warfighting, and ultimately leads to an accretion of gendered practices in militaries, politics and society, despite contemporary attempts at minimizing these practices through policies of inclusion. I argue that though much work on gender and technology exists, the autonomous humanoid robot – the one currently sought by DARPA – is something entirely new, and must be addressed on its own terms. In particular, this machine exceeds even Haraway's conception of the post-human cyborg, and rather than emancipating human beings from gender hierarchy, further reifies its practices. Masculine humanoid robots will be deemed ideal warfighters, while feminine humanoid robots will be tasked with research or humanitarian efforts, thereby reinstituting gendered roles.