This open access book presents detailed findings about the ethical, legal, and social acceptance of robots in the German and European context. The key resource is the Bremen AI Delphi survey of scientists and politicians and a related population survey. The focus is on trust in robotic assistance, human willingness to use this assistance, and the expected personal well-being in human-robot interaction. Using recent data from Eurostat, the European Social Survey, and the Eurobarometer survey, the analysis is extended to Germany and the EU. The acceptance of robots in care and everyday life is viewed against their acceptance in other contexts of life and the scientific research. The book reports on how the probability of five complex future scenarios is evaluated by experts and politicians. These scenarios cover a broad range of topics, including the worst-case scenario of cutthroat competition for jobs, the wealth promise of AI, communication in human-robot interaction, robotic assistance, and ethical and legal conflicts.
International economic competition alone will ensure that countries invest sustainably in the future technologies of AI and robots. But will these technologies also be accepted by the population? The book raises the core issue of how governments can gain the needed social, ethical, and user acceptance of AI and robots in everyday life.
This highly topical book is of interest to researchers, professionals and policy makers working on various aspects of human-robot interaction. This is an open access book.

Provides a comparative empirical analysis of human-robot interaction in everyday life Evaluates the social and ethical issues related to robots in human contexts Brings together an interdisciplinary group of top scholars on the key issue of how robots will shape future life This book is open access, which means that you have free and unlimited access

Autorentext

Prof. Dr. Uwe Engel is Professor at the Department of Social Sciences in the University of Bremen, Germany, and head of views & insights.com. His research interests include survey methodology, computational social science, human-robot interaction, and the conduct of methodological field research (experiments, surveys). Over the past years, he has conducted more than 10 larger academic surveys and coordinated the Priority Programme 1292 on Survey Methodology of the German Research Foundation. He is a founding member of the European Association of Methodology (EAM).

Inhalt
Introduction.- Chapter 1: Trustworthiness and digital well-being: The ethical, legal, and social challenge of robotic assistance .- Chapter 2: Images of robotic assistance.- Chapter 4: The challenge of autonomy: What we can learn from research on robots designed for harsh environments.- Chapter 5: The legal challenge of robotic assistance.- Chapter 6: Cognition-enabled robots in care and everyday life: Perspectives, challenges, current views and insights.- Chapter 7: Ethical challenges of assistive robotics in the elderly care: Review and reflection