Talk held at EASST 2014 Conference, Torun (Poland) 17.09.2014 Several EU funded projects focus on assistive robots as Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) technologies. This field of applied robotics is defined as robots performing physical or "social" tasks for the well-being of persons with disability whether in domestic or care facility contexts. The submission presents two cases of assistive robotic projects out of an ongoing, comparative dissertation project. In both projects researchers deployed assistive robots to elderly, a market-ready solution for the treatment of dementia and a prototype platform for physical assistance at home. Due to diverging research interest and method set, the projects followed two contrasting ways of integrating the elderly and their needs into the research: A "top down" approach on the organizational level of elderly care and a participatory design approach on the other hand. The submission reconstructs those two tactics from participant observation and expert interviews and focuses on the question, how these different procedures co-construct the user and it's needs. The analysis of the methods and rhetorics observed shows for example how different stake holders of elderly care have to be integrated while the actual users are systematically blanked out. The use of the participatory design approach on the other hand led to an interesting entanglement of community work amongst recruited "expert lay users" and the researchers. In comparing these tactics the submission seeks to contribute to the question, how research projects on assistive robots as personal health technologies shape elderly and disabled as users in order to make them fit into the needs of there research.

1. Two ways of co-constructing the user in
assistive robotics!
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Panel: Health innovation and the grand challenge of ageing: Governing
the personal health systems revolution!
!!
Andreas Bischof, Technische Universität Chemnitz, andreas.bischof@phil.tu-chemnitz.de
EASST Conference „Situating Solidarities: Social Challenges for Science and Technology Studies“, 17 - 19th September 2014,
Torún, Poland

2. 1. What is Social Robotics?
2. Shift in Discourse and Practice of Assistive Robotics
3. Co-Constructing Users in Assistive Robotic Projects
3.1.„Institutional“ Approach
3.2.„Participatory Design“
3.3.Comparison
4. Implications
Co-Constructing the User in Assistive Robotics
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3. 1. What is Social Robotics?
fundamental shift from industrial robots to
„socially interactive“ robots
(field of application, funding strategies,
epistemic culture, scientific field)
Co-Constructing the User in Assistive Robotics
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!!!
milestones:
- 1997 AAAI Robotics Challenge „Hors d‘Ouvre Anyone?“
- 1998 SAGE deployed in Pittsburgh
- 2002 S. Turkle (Turkle 2002: 133): companion metaphor;
C. Breazeal (Breazeal 2002) “sociable robots”
- 2004 first commercially sold PARO
- 2006 first ACM / IEEE conference on „Human Robot
Interaction“ Human Robot Interaction
Social
Robotics

4. 1. What is Social Robotics?
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socio-technical future discourse: what is
constructed as desirable and feasible
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change of epistemic culture: engineers
and computer scientist try to make sense
about „the social“, users & fields of
application
!
modeling of (social) behavior: technical
trivialization of non-trivial phenomena (v.
Foerster 1993)
design
Co-Constructing the User in Assistive Robotics
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robot user

5. 2. Shift in Discourse & Practice
N. Kroes (2014):
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!
!
!
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▪ main instruments: ICT programs in EC’s FP5, FP6,
FP7, already 700 mio € for next program
▪ CORDIS: more than 40 european projects for
robots in elder care (more on national base)
"Other parts of the world are
taking this seriously. The US just
launched their National Robotics
Initiative; South Korea and Japan
are both investing heavily.“ „National Robotics Inititiative“, USA
Co-Constructing the User in Assistive Robotics
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6. 2. Shift in Discourse & Practice
“socio-technical future discourses“ (Grunwald
2012);“sociotechnical imaginaries” (Jasanoff and Kim 2009):
attainable futures (feasibility) and futures that ought to be
attained (desirability) present at the same time
(sensu Böhle/Bopp 2014)
Co-Constructing the User in Assistive Robotics
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desirability feasibility
university -
industry -
government
relation
without alternative
!
investment in competivity
long-term goal: „unveiling
the secrets“ of biology &
psychology
+ field of
application
critical attitudes towards
automatization vs.
improvement
each specific context as
key condition of success

7. 3. Co-Constructing the User in
Assistive Robotics
▪ „co-construction“ (Pinch &
Oudshoorn 2003): questions of
policy-making based on usage
estimates & the way developers
conceptualize users
▪ participant observation & expert
interviews in european and american
social robotic projects
▪ What are the „detectors“ (Knorr-
Cetina 1999) of social robotics?
Social scientific evaluation!
Co-Constructing the User in Assistive Robotics
„epistemic culture“
as theoretical hinge
between practice,
institutions and discourse
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8. 3.1 „institutional“ approach
Co-Constructing the User in Assistive Robotics
Department of Health
8
Protocol
Care Facility
Management Doctors Care Givers
Custodians
Families
user test! !
Paro deployed in morning routine, esp. washing!
& bathing! !8
0 participants, ABAB, intersubject comparison! !q
uestionnaire filled in by care givers ! !
measures: how the care routine of washing went!
& indication scale for degree of dementia

9. 3.2 „participatory design“
Co-Constructing the User in Assistive Robotics
6 other project partners
9
elderly
formal
caregivers
known
participants
EC 7FP /
EC Digital Agenda
Work Package Evaluation
local
participants
user test! !l
aboratory experiment:!
absolving household tasks with the robot! !
close entanglement test leader / participants! !
measure: performance time and acceptance! !
reduced to Likert scale questionnaire in the end
Team
2 Scenarios
informal
caregivers

10. 3.3 Comparison
„institutional“ „participatory“
Co-Constructing the User in Assistive Robotics
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research area socially (emotional) assistive
robotics
(socially) assistive robotics
aim of robotic
platform
lift the mood of dementia
patients
physical assistance in home
project form national, third party funded european joint project
robotic platform ready made developing prototype
project goal improve use case improve platform
methodological
approach
standardized, testing standardized & non-standardized,
testing
goal and design of
user tests
systematic control of effects,
ABAB-design
evaluation by target group
laboratory „in the wild“ scenario laboratory

11. 3.3 Comparison
What are epistemic tools to cope with social
complexity?
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• ambition: everyday observations, empathy,
incorporated knowledge, everyday discussions,
involving family and friends, expert knowledge
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• suspension: questionnaires established before
the field contact; user tests scheduled by grant
application, development & evaluation not
congruent for summative evaluation
Co-Constructing the User in Assistive Robotics
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12. 3.3 Comparison
How are the users co-constructed?
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„institutional“
highly statutorily regulated, total institution, HRI part of timed
and controlled everyday routine; two types of user: expert end
users (nurses) and implicated actors (inmates)
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„participatory“
following the STF discourse; fostering user expectations that
are above the constraints of the platform (scenario tailoring);
incongruity involvement („expert-lay users“) vs. function of
data in project
Co-Constructing the User in Assistive Robotics
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13. 4. Implications
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socio-technical future discourse: what is cons-tructed
as desirable and feasible
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change of epistemic culture: engineers and
computer scientist try to make sense about
„the social“, users & fields of application
▪ what shapes representation and co-construction of the user:
▪ researcher’s pressure to succeed (evaluate technology positively)
▪ (political) implications of funding (stf-discourse: acceptance)
▪ legitimation of scientificity (cartesian) of engineering & computer
science
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▪ funding / research: reflect upon & integrate „real“ user needs and social
complexity of situations of use
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▪ STS / sociology / HRI: instead reflecting on robot ontology / machine
potential of interaction focus on (political) implications of their
construction; link discourse / research practice as empirical question
Co-Constructing the User in Assistive Robotics
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14. Rights & Images
This presentation is published under CC by-nc-sa 3.0 (legal code) — You
are free to share (copy and redistribute the material in any medium or
format) and adapt (remix, transform, and build upon the material) if
you give appropriate credit to the author, provide a link to the
license, and indicate if changes were made. You may not use the
material for commercial purposes. If you remix, transform, or build
upon the material, you must distribute your contributions under the
same license as the original.
!
except images:
▪ SAGE (3),Thrun / Nourbahksh, Copyright
▪ MINERVA (4), Schulte / Rosenberg / Thrun, Copyright
▪ NRI (6), Eric/armedrobots, Copyright
▪ Cover Knorr-Cetina (7), suhrkamp, Copyright
▪ Paro (8), Jennifer / flickr, CC by-sa 2.0
▪ Robot (9), Jiuguang Wang / flickr, CC by-sa 2.0
Co-Constructing the User in Assistive Robotics
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15. References
Böhle, K./Bopp, K., 2014: What a Vision: The Artificial Companion. A Piece of Vision Assessment Including an
Expert Survey. Science, Technology & Innovation Studies. !
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Goffman E. 196. Asylums. Essays on the Social Situation of Mental patients and Other Inmates!
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Grunwald, A., 2012: Technikzukünfte als Medium von Zukunftsdebatten und Technikgestaltung. Karlsruhe: KIT
Scientific Publishing.!
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Jasanoff, S./Sang-Hyun K., 2009: Containing the Atom: Sociotechnical Imaginaries and Nuclear Power in the
United States and South Korea. In: Minerva 47, 119-146.!
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Knorr-Cetina, K., 1999: Epistemic Cultures: How the Sciences Make Knowledge. New York: Routledge.!
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Kroess, N., 2014: Lighting a SPARC under our competitive economy. European Commission - SPEECH/14/421,
03/06/2014 !
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Oudshoorn, N./Pinch, T. (ed), 2003: How Users Matter. The Co-construction of Users and Technology.
Massachusetts: MIT Press.!
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Vincze, M./Weiss, A./Lammer, L./Huber, A./Gatterer, G., 2014: On the Discrepancy between Present Service
Robots and Older Persons’ Needs. ROMAN
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