Robots in society (A series of information seminars on robotics)
RegistrationThe aim is to bring together everyone with an interest in Robotics, i.e., researchers in robotics, professionals in a variety of robot application domains and stakeholders from the public, to discuss the growing role of robots in everyday life. The increasing adoption of robotic technologies is raising numerous technical, regulatory, ethical and legal challenges which need to be discussed and addressed.
This particular event is focused on the increasing use of robotics in the fields of medicine and personal care with an emphasis on the role that wearable robotics can play. For example, there is a huge potential for the use of robotic applications to help manage the impact of the increasing number of elderly people in our society.
A key feature of robots is that they possess a “degree of autonomy” and hence can have the capability to make independent decisions for fulfilling their intended task. For example, physical assistance robots which are planned to help with personal mobility for maintaining independence and quality of life of elderly persons, are defined as:
Personal care robots that physically assist a user to perform required tasks by providing supplementation or augmentation of personal capabilities.
Other examples include robots developed for
- Surgery
- Rehabilitation of patients
- Support provision for disabled persons
In all of these examples, the introduction of autonomous capabilities raises many issues around the legal, safety and ethical consequences.
- 11:30 Registration and coffee
- 11.45 Welcome David Rippon, BCS
- 11:50 Medical Robots for Surgery Prof Guang-Zhong Yang, Imperial College
- 12:20 Assistive interactive medical robots Prof Sanja Dogramadzi, UWE, BRL
- 12.50 Lunch
- 13:30 Medical robots for rehabilitation Farshid Amirabdollahian, Univ Hertfordshire
- 14:00 Robots to support activities for daily living Prof Gurvinder S Virk, CLAWAR & InnotecUK
- 14:30 Robot surgery: Benefits to patients Satyajit Bhattachargya, Consultant Surgeon and Liveryman, Company of Barbers
- 15:00 Ethics of AI in IT & Robotics Chris Rees, President, BCS
- 15:30 Videos and live medical robot demonstrations of research prototypes and company products
- 16:10 Panel discussion on key issues of concern and Q&A
- Are robots important for medical applications? If so, why?
- What are the main barriers to widespread adoption of medical robots?
- Key risks – what should we be concerned about?
- Issues raised by event attendees
- 16:40 Conclusions Jean Irvine, BCS Digital Accessibility SG
- 16:50 Refreshments & Networking
- 17.00 End of event
1st Floor,
The Davidson Building,
5 Southampton Street,
London, WC2E 7HA
David Rippon; david.rippon@pmservices.co.uk
Peter Dudley; dudleyp@acm.org
Helen Simon; helenmarysimon@btinternet.com
Jean Irvine; irvinej@btinternet.com
Nigel Lewis; nigel.lewis@abilitynet.org.uk
The events are organised by BCS, WCIT and CLAWAR Association Limited as core partners.
BCS The Chartered Institute for IT, promotes wider social and economic progress through the advancement of information technology science and practice (see www.bcs.org).
WCIT is the 100th City of London Livery Company with the aim to promote the IT industry for contributing to the greater good of society (see www.wcit.org.uk).
CLAWAR is a UK registered charity with the mission: “The advancement of education and science for the public benefit in the field of robotics and associated technologies” (see www.clawar.org)