research-article

Hospital Beds, Robot Priests and Huggables:: A (Fictional) Review of Commercially Available Care Robots

Authors:

Britta Schulte,

Lena Franzkowiak,

Eva HorneckerAuthors Info & Claims

NordiCHI '20: Proceedings of the 11th Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction: Shaping Experiences, Shaping Society

Article No.: 43, Pages 1 - 11

https://doi.org/10.1145/3419249.3420127

Published: 26 October 2020 Publication History

Abstract

Taking a current critique of predominant visions of care robotics about 20 years into the future, in this paper, we imagine a world in which robotic technologies have become the predominant mode of care and outline how this came to be. Based on ethnographic experience in care homes and knowledge of robotics, we have developed fictional robots for possible future care scenarios. We describe six facets of caregiving that are rarely discussed in the current discourse about robots: recovery & rehabilitation, death & palliative care, bereavement & remembrance, growth & development, transcendent experiences and intimacy & sexuality. By doing so, we pose the question if and how we could integrate them into our view on technology in care. This fictional review highlights blind spots of current endeavors and thereby this paper contributes new directions for research and design.

References

[1]

Swamy Ananthanarayan, Miranda Sheh, Alice Chien, Halley Profita, and Katie Siek. 2013. Pt Viz: towards a wearable device for visualizing knee rehabilitation exercises. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 1247–1250.

Digital Library

[2]

James Auger. 2013. Speculative design: crafting the speculation. Digit. Creat.24, 1 (2013), 11–35.

[3]

Oliver Bates, Christian Remy, Callum Nash, and Ben Kirman. 2019. The future of techno-disruption in gig economy workforces: challenging the dialogue with fictional abstracts. In Proceedings of the Halfway to the Future Symposium 2019 (HTTF 2019), Association for Computing Machinery, Nottingham, United Kingdom, 1–4.

Digital Library

[4]

Genevieve Bell, Mark Blythe, and Phoebe Sengers. 2005. Making by making strange: Defamiliarization and the design of domestic technologies. ACM Trans. Comput.-Hum. Interact. TOCHI 12, 2 (2005), 149–173.

Digital Library

[5]

Mark Blythe. 2014. Research through design fiction: narrative in real and imaginary abstracts. In Proceedings of the 32nd annual ACM conference on Human factors in computing systems - CHI ’14, ACM Press, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, 703–712.

Digital Library

[6]

Mark Blythe. 2014. Research through design fiction: narrative in real and imaginary abstracts. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’14), Association for Computing Machinery, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, 703–712.

Digital Library

[7]

Johanna Brewer, Joseph “Jofish” Kaye, Amanda Williams, and Susan Wyche. 2006. Sexual interactions: why we should talk about sex in HCI. In CHI ’06 extended abstracts on Human factors in computing systems - CHI EA ’06, ACM Press, Montréal, Québec, Canada, 1695.

[8]

Elizabeth Buie. 2019. Let Us Say What We Mean: Towards Operational Definitions for Techno-Spirituality Research. In Extended Abstracts of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA ’19), ACM, New York, NY, USA, alt16:1–alt16:10.

Digital Library

[9]

Elizabeth Buie and Mark Blythe. 2013. Spirituality: There's an App for That! (but Not a Lot of Research). In CHI ’13 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA ’13), ACM, New York, NY, USA, 2315–2324.

[10]

Samantha Murphy Kelly Business CNN. Samsung's BB-8-like personal assistant Ballie follows you around at home. CNN. Retrieved January 18, 2020 from https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/07/tech/samsung-ballie-ces-2020/index.html

[11]

Tim Chatterton and Georgia Newmarch. 2017. The future is already here: it's just not very evenly distributed. Interactions 24, 2 (February 2017), 42–45.

Digital Library

[12]

Tommy Chou, Laura J. Bry, and Jonathan S. Comer. 2017. Multimedia field test: Evaluating the creative ambitions of SuperBetter and its quest to gamify mental health. Cogn. Behav. Pract.24, 1 (2017), 115–120.

[13]

Oliver Moody Correspondent Science. 2016. Fitbit for the soul will look inside your head. The Times. Retrieved January 22, 2020 from https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/fitbit-for-the-soul-will-look-inside-your-head-rn6z2nsnw

[14]

Paul Coulton, Joseph Lindley, Miriam Sturdee, and Mike Stead. 2017. Design Fiction as World Building. In Proceedings of the 3rd Biennial Research Through Design Conference, Edinburgh, UK, 16. 10.6084/m9.figshare.4746964

[15]

Yngve Dahl and Kristine Holbø. 2012. Value biases of sensor-based assistive technology: case study of a GPS tracking system used in dementia care. In Proceedings of the Designing Interactive Systems Conference, ACM, 572–581.

Digital Library

[16]

Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby. 2001. Design noir: The secret life of electronic objects. Springer Science & Business Media.

[17]

Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby. 2013. Speculative everything: design, fiction, and social dreaming. MIT press.

Digital Library

[18]

Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby. Dunne & Raby. Retrieved November 7, 2018 from http://www.dunneandraby.co.uk/content/bydandr/13/0

[19]

Robert Douglas Ferguson, Michael Massimi, Emily Anne Crist, and Karyn Anne Moffatt. 2014. Craving, Creating, and Constructing Comfort: Insights and Opportunities for Technology in Hospice. In Proceedings of the 17th ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work & Social Computing (CSCW ’14), ACM, New York, NY, USA, 1479–1490.

Digital Library

[20]

Sarah Grace Fields. 2016. Incorporation of Generational Learning in Familiar Interfaces and Systems: A Design Fiction. ACM Press, 355–361.

[21]

Björn Franke. 2010. Design Fiction is Not Necessarily About the Future. In Sixth Swiss Design Network Conference, Negotiating Futures–Design Fiction, 80–90.

[22]

William Gaver, Mark Blythe, Andy Boucher, Nadine Jarvis, John Bowers, and Peter Wright. 2010. The prayer companion: openness and specificity, materiality and spirituality. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’10), Association for Computing Machinery, Atlanta, Georgia, USA, 2055–2064.

Digital Library

[23]

Daniel Hurst. 2018. Japan lays groundwork for boom in robot carers. The Guardian. Retrieved January 26, 2020 from https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/feb/06/japan-robots-will-care-for-80-of-elderly-by-2020

[24]

K. Joyce, A. Peine, L. Neven, and F. Kohlbacher. 2017. Aging: The socio-material constitution of later life. Handb. Sci. Technol. Stud. (2017), 915–942.

[25]

Gopinaath Kannabiran, Jeffrey Bardzell, and Shaowen Bardzell. 2011. How HCI talks about sexuality: discursive strategies, blind spots, and opportunities for future research. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, ACM Press, Vancouver, B.C. Canada, 695.

Digital Library

[26]

Ben Kirman, Conor Linehan, Shaun Lawson, and Dan O'Hara. 2013. CHI and the future robot enslavement of humankind: a retrospective. In CHI’13 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems, ACM, 2199–2208.

[27]

Annica Kristoffersson, Silvia Coradeschi, and Amy Loutfi. 2013. A review of mobile robotic telepresence. Adv. Hum.-Comput. Interact.2013, (2013), 3.

Digital Library

[28]

Norbert Krüger and Ole Dolriis. Five reasons why robots won't take over the world. The Conversation. Retrieved January 26, 2020 from http://theconversation.com/five-reasons-why-robots-wont-take-over-the-world-94124

[29]

Maria Puig de La Bellacasa. 2011. Matters of care in technoscience: Assembling neglected things. Soc. Stud. Sci.41, 1 (2011), 85–106.

[30]

Joseph Lindley. 2015. A pragmatics framework for design fiction. Paris, France, 1–10. Retrieved from http://eprints.lancs.ac.uk/73456/1/JL_Pragmatics_Framework.pdf

[31]

Joseph Lindley and Paul Coulton. 2015. Game of Drones. In Proceedings of the 2015 Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play (CHI PLAY ’15), ACM, New York, NY, USA, 613–618.

Digital Library

[32]

Joseph Lindley and Paul Coulton. 2016. Pushing the Limits of Design Fiction: The Case For Fictional Research Papers. In Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, ACM, San Jose California USA, 4032–4043.

Digital Library

[33]

Benjamin Lipp. 2017. Analytik des Interfacing. Zur Materialität technologischer Verschaltung in prototypischen Milieus robotisierter Pflege. BEHEMOTH- J. Civilis.10, 1 (2017), 107–129.

[34]

Sus Lyckvi, Yiying Wu, Maria Huusko, and Virpi Roto. 2018. Eagons, exoskeletons and ecologies: on expressing and embodying fictions as workshop tasks. In Proceedings of the 10th Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction - NordiCHI ’18, ACM Press, Oslo, Norway, 754–770.

Digital Library

[35]

Matt Malpass. 2013. Between Wit and Reason: Defining Associative, Speculative, and Critical Design in Practice. Des. Cult.5, 3 (November 2013), 333–356.

[36]

Aryn Martin, Natasha Myers, and Ana Viseu. 2015. The politics of care in technoscience. Soc. Stud. Sci.45, 5 (October 2015), 625–641.

[37]

Michael Massimi, Will Odom, David Kirk, and Richard Banks. 2010. HCI at the end of life: understanding death, dying, and the digital. In CHI ’10 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA ’10), Association for Computing Machinery, Atlanta, Georgia, USA, 4477–4480.

Digital Library

[38]

Pooria Mostafalu, Ali Tamayol, Rahim Rahimi, Manuel Ochoa, Akbar Khalilpour, Gita Kiaee, Iman K. Yazdi, Sara Bagherifard, Mehmet R. Dokmeci, Babak Ziaie, Sameer R. Sonkusale, and Ali Khademhosseini. 2018. Smart Bandage for Monitoring and Treatment of Chronic Wounds. Small 14, 33 (2018), 1703509.

[39]

Louis Neven. 2010. ‘But obviously not for me’: robots, laboratories and the defiant identity of elder test users. Sociol. Health Illn.32, 2 (February 2010), 335–347.

[40]

Nelly Oudshoorn and Trevor Pinch (Eds.). 2003. How users matter: the co-construction of users and technologies. MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass.

[41]

Daniel Pargman, Elina Eriksson, Rob Comber, Ben Kirman, and Oliver Bates. 2018. The futures of computing and wisdom. In Proceedings of the 10th Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction - NordiCHI ’18, ACM Press, Oslo, Norway, 960–963.

Digital Library

[42]

Daniel Pargman, Elina Eriksson, Rob Comber, Ben Kirman, and Oliver Bates. 2018. The futures of computing and wisdom. In Proceedings of the 10th Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (NordiCHI ’18), Association for Computing Machinery, Oslo, Norway, 960–963.

Digital Library

[43]

Alexander Peine, Ingo Rollwagen, and Louis Neven. 2014. The rise of the “innosumer”—Rethinking older technology users. Technol. Forecast. Soc. Change 82, (2014), 199–214.

[44]

Stephen Purpura, Victoria Schwanda, Kaiton Williams, William Stubler, and Phoebe Sengers. 2011. Fit4life: the design of a persuasive technology promoting healthy behavior and ideal weight. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’11), Association for Computing Machinery, Vancouver, BC, Canada, 423–432.

Digital Library

[45]

S. Reis, J. Almeida, J. P. Figueiredo, and A. Ferreira. 2016. Prevalence of symptoms of musculoskeletal injuries related to the work of caregiver—case study of a social institution. Occup. Saf. Hyg. IV 147, (2016).

[46]

Peter Holley closePeter HolleyTechnology reporterEmailEmailBioBioFollowFollow. 2020. Meet ‘Mindar,’ the robotic Buddhist priest. Washington Post. Retrieved January 22, 2020 from https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/08/22/introducing-mindar-robotic-priest-that-some-are-calling-frankenstein-monster/

[47]

Elizabeth B.-N. Sanders and Pieter Jan Stappers. 2014. Probes, toolkits and prototypes: three approaches to making in codesigning. CoDesign 10, 1 (January 2014), 5–14.

[48]

Amanda Sharkey and Noel Sharkey. 2012. Granny and the robots: ethical issues in robot care for the elderly. Ethics Inf. Technol.14, 1 (March 2012), 27–40.

Digital Library

[49]

Harriet Sherwood. 2016. Robot monk to spread Buddhist wisdom to the digital generation. The Guardian. Retrieved January 22, 2020 from https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/26/robot-monk-to-spread-buddhist-wisdom-to-the-digital-generation

[50]

Robert Sparrow. 2016. Robots in aged care: a dystopian future? AI Soc.31, 4 (November 2016), 445–454.

Digital Library

[51]

Norman Makoto Su, Leslie S. Liu, and Amanda Lazar. 2014. Mundanely miraculous: the robot in healthcare. In Proceedings of the 8th Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction Fun, Fast, Foundational - NordiCHI ’14, ACM Press, Helsinki, Finland, 391–400.

Digital Library

[52]

Lucy Suchman. Robot Futures. Robot Futures. Retrieved January 22, 2020 from https://robotfutures.wordpress.com/

[53]

Joshua Tanenbaum. 2014. Design fictional interactions: why HCI should care about stories. interactions 21, 5 (September 2014), 22–23.

Digital Library

[54]

Thich Duc Thien and Thich Nhat Tu. 2019. Buddhism and the fourth industrial revolution. Vietnam Buddhist University Publications.

[55]

Pat Treusch. 2015. Robotic companionship: The making of anthropomatic kitchen robots in queer feminist technoscience perspective. PhD Thesis. Linköping University Electronic Press.

[56]

James Vincent. 2018. This sun-chasing robot looks after the plant on its head. The Verge. Retrieved January 15, 2020 from https://www.theverge.com/2018/7/12/17563688/robot-plant-hybrid-hexa-vincross-succulent

[57]

John Vines, Gary Pritchard, Peter Wright, Patrick Olivier, and Katie Brittain. 2015. An age-old problem: Examining the discourses of ageing in HCI and strategies for future research. ACM Trans. Comput.-Hum. Interact. TOCHI 22, 1 (2015), 2.

Digital Library

[58]

Richmond Y. Wong, Nick Merrill, and John Chuang. 2018. When BCIs have APIs: Design Fictions of Everyday Brain-Computer Interface Adoption. In Proceedings of the 2018 on Designing Interactive Systems Conference 2018 - DIS ’18, ACM Press, Hong Kong, China, 1359–1371.

Digital Library

[59]

Keming Yang and Christina Victor. 2011. Age and loneliness in 25 European nations. Ageing Soc.31, 8 (November 2011), 1368–1388.

[60]

Jie Zhou* and Neal Wiggermann. 2019. Physical Stresses on Caregivers when Pulling Patients Up in Bed: Effect of Repositioning Aids and Patient Weight. In Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting, SAGE Publications Sage CA: Los Angeles, CA, 1057–1061.

[61]

2019. “Click to Pray eRosary” – wearable smart device to pray the rosary for peace - Vatican News. Retrieved December 3, 2019 from https://www.vaticannews.va/en/vatican-city/news/2019-10/click-pray-rosary-smart-digital-device-world-peace.html

[62]

2020. Lua, the smart planter with feelings! Indiegogo. Retrieved January 15, 2020 from https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/2506260

[63]

2020. Replika. replika.ai. Retrieved January 15, 2020 from https://replika.ai

[64]

2020. Grace and Frankie. Wikipedia. Retrieved January 26, 2020 from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Grace_and_Frankie&oldid=936824358

[65]

2020. Ryan: A Companion Robot for Seniors. Engineering & Computer Science. Retrieved January 22, 2020 from https://ritchieschool.du.edu/news/ryan-companion-robot-seniors

[66]

Pepper | Softbank Robotics. Retrieved January 18, 2020 from https://www.softbankrobotics.com/us/pepper

[67]

PARO Therapeutic Robot. Retrieved January 26, 2020 from http://www.parorobots.com/

[68]

Ageing and health. Retrieved January 26, 2020 from https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/ageing-and-health

Cited By

Sheahan JCardamone EVines J(2024)Exploring Generative Postcard Futures with Older AdultsAdjunct Proceedings of the 2024 Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/3677045.3685502(1-6)Online publication date: 13-Oct-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3677045.3685502
Wolf SFriedrich PHurtienne J(2024)Still Not a Lot of Research? Re-Examining HCI Research on Religion and SpiritualityExtended Abstracts of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613905.3651058(1-15)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3613905.3651058
Albers RHassenzahl M(2024)Let’s Talk About Death: Existential Conversations with ChatbotsProceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3642421(1-14)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3613904.3642421
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

Hospital Beds, Robot Priests and Huggables:: A (Fictional) Review of Commercially Available Care Robots
1. Applied computing
  1. Life and medical sciences
2. Human-centered computing

Index terms have been assigned to the content through auto-classification.

Recommendations

The Interactive Enactment of Care Technologies and its Implications for Human-Robot-Interaction in Care
NordiCHI '20: Proceedings of the 11th Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction: Shaping Experiences, Shaping Society

Various technical innovations for the care sector, particularly robots, are being developed to cope with demographic change and to support nursing staff. A central issue for the successful integration of such technology into gerontological care ...
Researchers' toolbox for the future: designing the future of technology with and for children
IDC '20: Proceedings of the 2020 ACM Interaction Design and Children Conference: Extended Abstracts

Within Child Computer Interaction (CCI), there is an emphasis on empowering children through co-design and co-creation of technology that shapes their learning, inside and outside the classroom, their wellbeing and lifestyles, and everyday experiences. ...
Research Fiction: Storytelling, Plot and Design
CHI '17: Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

What kind of stories and plots do researchers of Human Computer Interaction draw on when they make fictions? This paper applies the "basic plots" identified in the study of literature to scenarios, speculative design and design fiction. Traditional HCI ...

Comments

Please enable JavaScript to view thecomments powered by Disqus.

Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image ACM Other conferences

NordiCHI '20: Proceedings of the 11th Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction: Shaping Experiences, Shaping Society

October 2020

1177 pages

ISBN:9781450375795

DOI:10.1145/3419249

General Chairs:
David Lamas
Tallinn University, Estonia
,
Hegle Sarapuu
Trinidad Wiseman, Estonia
,
Publications Chairs:
Ilja Šmorgun
Tallinn University, Estonia
,
Gerd Berget
Oslo Metropolitan University, Norway

Copyright © 2020 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than the author(s) must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected].

Publisher

Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 26 October 2020

Permissions

Request permissions for this article.

Request Permissions

Check for updates

Author Tags

Qualifiers

Research-article
Research
Refereed limited

Conference

NordiCHI '20

NordiCHI '20: Shaping Experiences, Shaping Society

October 25 - 29, 2020

Tallinn, Estonia

Acceptance Rates

NordiCHI '20 Paper Acceptance Rate 89 of 399 submissions, 22%;

Overall Acceptance Rate 379 of 1,572 submissions, 24%

Contributors

Other Metrics

View Article Metrics

Bibliometrics & Citations

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

6
Total Citations
View Citations
284
Total Downloads

Downloads (Last 12 months)73
Downloads (Last 6 weeks)8

Reflects downloads up to 03 Oct 2024

Other Metrics

View Author Metrics

Citations

Cited By

Sheahan JCardamone EVines J(2024)Exploring Generative Postcard Futures with Older AdultsAdjunct Proceedings of the 2024 Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/3677045.3685502(1-6)Online publication date: 13-Oct-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3677045.3685502
Wolf SFriedrich PHurtienne J(2024)Still Not a Lot of Research? Re-Examining HCI Research on Religion and SpiritualityExtended Abstracts of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613905.3651058(1-15)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3613905.3651058
Albers RHassenzahl M(2024)Let’s Talk About Death: Existential Conversations with ChatbotsProceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3642421(1-14)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3613904.3642421
Albers RSadeghian SLaschke MHassenzahl M(2023)Dying, Death, and the Afterlife in Human-Computer Interaction. A Scoping Review.Proceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3544548.3581199(1-16)Online publication date: 19-Apr-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3544548.3581199
Schulte BHornecker E(2022)Care Stories: Understanding People's Hopes and Fears for Technologies of Care through Story ElicitationProceedings of the 25th International Academic Mindtrek Conference10.1145/3569219.3569309(117-128)Online publication date: 16-Nov-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3569219.3569309
Paluch RMüller C(2022)"That's Something for Children"Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/34928506:GROUP(1-35)Online publication date: 14-Jan-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3492850

View Options

Get Access

Login options

Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution to get full access on this article.

Full Access

Get this Publication

View options

PDF

View or Download as a PDF file.

eReader

View online with eReader.

HTML Format

View this article in HTML Format.

Media

Figures

Other

Tables

View Table of Contents