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About

Jukka Sundvall is a researcher specializing in the moral psychology of artificial intelligence and robotics, with a particular focus on how humans perceive and evaluate the ethical behavior of AI systems. His work sits at the intersection of social psychology, ethics, and emerging technology, addressing some of the most pressing questions raised by the integration of robots into everyday human life. Sundvall's most influential contribution is the General Attitudes Towards Robots Scale (GAToRS), published in 2022 and already amassing 86 citations, which provides researchers and social scientists with a validated psychometric tool for measuring public attitudes toward robots. His research on nursing robots has been especially impactful, revealing that people paradoxically disapprove of violations of patient autonomy yet favor robots that disobey orders to protect patients — findings that carry significant implications for healthcare AI design and policy. Through a series of rigorous experimental studies, Sundvall has also challenged prevailing assumptions in moral psychology, demonstrating that robots are held to heightened standards of innocence rather than simply being expected to act as cold utilitarian calculators. His two-part theoretical work on moral psychology and artificial agents further cements his role as a thoughtful synthesizer of this rapidly evolving field, making his scholarship essential reading for anyone studying AI ethics or human-robot interaction.