Pediatric Robotics and Ethics

Abstract

As robots leave the lab and are deployed in hospital or other healthcare settings, the community of users may become overreliant on and overtrust such technology. Thus, there is a pressing need to examine the tendency to overtrust and develop strategies to mitigate the risk to children, parents, and healthcare providers that could occur due to an overreliance on pediatric robotics. To overcome this challenge, we seek to consider the broad range of ethical issues related to the use of robots in pediatric healthcare. This chapter provides an overview of the current state of the art in pediatric robotics, describes relevant ethical issues, and examines the role that overtrust plays in these scenarios. We conclude with suggested strategies to mitigate the relevant risks and describe a framework for the future deployment of robots in the pediatric domain.