Research

REELER Findings

Insights from the REELER project

The REELER project (Responsible Ethical Learning with Robotics) set out to explore ethics in robotics, not as a philosophical topic, but as an interdisciplinary inquiry into the people that make robots and the people that are affected by them, and the relational responsibility between them. The project’s research was focused on everyday decisions and practices in robot development, the collaborations that make development possible, and the learning that occurs (or doesn’t occur) in these processes.

Publication: Perspectives on Robots

REELER’s researchers worked closely together to raise awareness of the human potential in robotics development, with special attention to distributed development, relational responsibility, ethical and societal issues, collaborative learning, and the economic and societal impacts of robotization. These findings are summarized in the publication Perspectives on Robots.

These findings emerged from a comprehensive research methodology that blends ethnographic case studies with economic data on research and development, agent-based modelling, and experimental methods for collaborative learning. Read more about REELER’s methodology.

REELER’s research repository contains Individual contributions from REELER’s diverse team of researchers, including a selection of peer-reviewed articles and REELER’s working paper series. The repository also contains additional reports and supplementary material related to REELER’s research activities.

Throughout the documents found in the research repository are references to the 11 ethnographic case studies, selected for variation in robot types, application sectors, geographical distribution, and organization type.

REELER also pioneered several experimental outreach methods which provided input to the research, but also served as tools for engaging various stakeholders about new robot developments and their effects. Read more in Outreach.

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