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Ethical and Technical Aspects of Emotions to Create Empathy in Medical Machines

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Machine Medical Ethics

Part of the book series: Intelligent Systems, Control and Automation: Science and Engineering ((ISCA,volume 74))

Abstract

This chapter analyzes the ethical challenges in healthcare when introducing medical machines able to understand and mimic human emotions. Artificial emotions is still an emergent field in artificial intelligence, so we devote some space in this paper in order to explain what they are and how we can have an machine able to recognize and mimic basic emotions. We argue that empathy is the key emotion in healthcare contexts. We discuss what empathy is and how it can be modeled to include it in a medical machine. We consider types of medical machines (telemedicine, care robots and mobile apps), and describe the main machines that are in use and offer some predictions about what the near future may bring. The main ethical problems we consider in machine medical ethics are: privacy violations (due to online patient databases), how to deal with error and responsibility concerning machine decisions and actions, social inequality (as a result of people being removed from an e-healthcare system), and how to build trust between machines, patients, and medical professionals.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    For a list of important big software bugs, see WIRED paper at: http://www.wired.com/software/coolapps/news/2005/11/69355?currentPage=all. For engineering errors, see Henry Petrosky: To Engineer Is Human: The Role of Failure in Successful Design (1992); Design Paradigms: Case Histories of Error and Judgment in Engineering (1994); To Forgive Design: Understanding Failure (2012).

  2. 2.

    Cody robot has been partially designed to avoid this and to help nurses. See: http://www.coe.gatech.edu/content/robotic-cody-learns-bathe.

  3. 3.

    http://rehacare.messe-dus.co.jp/fileadmin/files/EuropCommission_ny_robotics_for_healthcare.pdf

  4. 4.

    See http://www.worldrobotics.org/uploads/media/Executive_Summary_WR_2013.pdf; http://www.roboticsbusinessreview.com/research/report/outlook_for_health_care_robotics_for_2013. The European project SILVER is another good example of deep investment in this direction (www.silverpcp.eu).

  5. 5.

    http://www.irobot.com/us/learn/commercial/rpvita.aspx

  6. 6.

    http://www.vgocom.com/health-it-promises-new-paradigm-patient-care

  7. 7.

    http://www.doublerobotics.com/. The 2009 Hollywood film “Surrogates” is not so far from this robot implementation, except for the grade of human likeness of the service robots.

  8. 8.

    http://www.parorobots.com/

  9. 9.

    http://www.fda.gov/downloads/MedicalDevices/ProductsandMedicalProcedures/SurgeryandLifeSupport/ComputerAssistedRoboticSurgicalSystems/UCM374095.pdf

  10. 10.

    http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2013/06/19/national/robot-niche-expands-in-senior-care/#.Ul-YONLIXwk

  11. 11.

    http://www.ifr.org/industrial-robots/statistics/

  12. 12.

    See the 2012 official report http://www.healthit.gov/sites/default/files/final_report_building_better_consumer_ehealth.pdf.

  13. 13.

    This would follow normal psychological rules implemented In normal health systems. See for example official guides like: http://www.cms.gov/Outreach-and-Education/Medicare-Learning-Network-MLN/MLNProducts/Downloads/Communicating_With_Patients_Fact-_Sheet_ICN908063.pdf or http://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/files/pdfversion/cr108.pdf.

  14. 14.

    For example, the University of Washington, Medical Central provides several examples following this special necessity: with Korean patients see http://depts.washington.edu/pfes/PDFs/KoreanCultureClue.pdf, http://depts.washington.edu/pfes/PDFs/DeafCultureClue.pdf. They also call them ‘cultural clues’ http://depts.washington.edu/pfes/CultureClues.htm.

  15. 15.

    The official video is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAVtkh0mL20&feature=player_detailpage.

  16. 16.

    WOZ (Wizard of OZ) experiments are experiments with teleoperated robots. I performed some of these experiments at the Nishidalab Kyoto University, http://www.aaai.org/Papers/Workshops/2007/WS-07-07/WS07-07-008.pdf. More on WOZ in Riek [59].

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Acknowledgments

Financial support for this research was received from the Spanish Government’s DGICYT research project: FFI2011-23238, “Innovation in scientific practice: cognitive approaches and their philosophical consequences”. Most of this work was supported by the TECNOCOG research group (at UAB) on Cognition and Technological Environments, and has been developed by the SETE (Synthetic Emotions in Technological Environments) research group. The last part of the research on HRI and emotions was funded by the Japan society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) at Nishidalab, University of Kyoto (Japan).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Philosophy Department, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain

    Jordi Vallverdú & David Casacuberta

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  1. Jordi Vallverdú
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  2. David Casacuberta
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Correspondence to Jordi Vallverdú .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Graduate Institute of Humanities in Medicine, Taipei Medical University, University of Tasmania, Dept of philosophy, Schl of Humanities, Taipei City, Taiwan

    Simon Peter van Rysewyk

  2. The Centre for Advanced Media Research, VU University Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Matthijs Pontier

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Vallverdú, J., Casacuberta, D. (2015). Ethical and Technical Aspects of Emotions to Create Empathy in Medical Machines. In: van Rysewyk, S., Pontier, M. (eds) Machine Medical Ethics. Intelligent Systems, Control and Automation: Science and Engineering, vol 74. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-08108-3_20

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-08108-3_20

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