Policy Recommendations

Robots are constructed by a small circle of people, collectively called robot makers, who share an understanding of the proper frame for discussing robot. This understanding is rooted in an understanding of the robot as primarily a technical solution to an identified problem.

The actual end-users of the robot are left out of this circle. However, they hold important information about the specific context, in which the robot will eventually be deployed. Losing out on their expertise is a loss to the design process – and, in the worst cases, leads to failed implementation. When end-users are included, they are often only involved indirectly, as when a spokespersons speak for a group of end-users (e.g., a hospital manager speaking for the nurses), or instrumentally in testing.

Engineers are trained to solve and identify problems in a very specific way. The problems they identify are informed by classical training problems: optimization and standardization tasks, and the solution to such problems is technology. Robot makers in general share this mindset. By focusing too narrowly on what the technical problems they identify, they can fail to address the complexity of practices, and end up importing their own normative understandings of e.g., what work is meaningful, end-users skills or body features. Where these understandings do not align with the end-users’ or stakeholders’ understandings, friction occur, and end-users may refuse to use or even actively sabotage the robot.

When robot makers fall short of capturing the diversity and complexity of the lifeworlds of end-users and stakeholders, they risk miscalculating the consequences of introducing robots into particular contexts. A robot introduced in a hospital, e.g., will not only affect the cleaning staff using it. Nurses and patients meeting the robots in the hallways may begin to compete with the robot over hallway space. An unforeseen consequence of the robot is the changed environment that makes nurses take detours, cause people to work against the robot, or more costly requires new, special, elevators for the robots. When con­sequences are overlooked in the design phase, robots may be mothballed, be met with resistance, seen as failures, or create problems instead of solving them.  

REELER has identified a wider group of people than the imagined end-users, and we argue it is relevant to consider this overarching group of affected stakeholders when fund­ing and designing robots. Affected stakeholders comprise end-users, directly affected stakeholders and distantly af­fected stakeholders. This group of people is affected in var­ious ways, by facing replacement or changes in job-func­tions, needing reskilling or risking a life on universal basic income. They often lack the educational skills, vocabulary, and power to voice how they experience the impact of robots. While most of the robotic-related consequences for directly affected stakeholders could be addressed in robot design, it is the responsibility of politicians to address the consequences of robots for distantly affected stakeholders.

Commercial marketing of robots, and popular media portrayal, influence how people perceive robots. This in turns affects the public imaginaries, which risks losing its connection to reality, if it does not include the lived experience of the end-users and stakeholders already affected by robots. In public, robots are often portrayed as intelligent and autonomous, however, this obscures a base truth: Robots are not independent agents. They are in need of constant human support – either by humans adapting the robot to suit particular contexts, or people, adapting their routines, to accommodate the functioning of the robot.