Skip to main content

LUP Student Papers

LUND UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES

Behind Every Social Robot Finds itself a Community of Developers: A socio-legal exploration on developers of humanoid social robots with a focus on the context of depression diagnosis and its embedded gender norms.

Tanqueray, Laetitia LU (2021) SOLM02 20211
Department of Sociology of Law
Abstract
The rise in new digital technology is bringing with it new ethical questions around how we, as a society, can trust them. However, what if the question was before the technology itself? What if the role of the developers was influencing the way those new technologies were being programmed? This thesis situates itself at the point of exploration, where developers of humanoid social robots look for ways to advance the human-robot interaction as a field as well as getting social robots commercial-ised. By placing it in the context of depression diagnosis, where seemingly there are gender norms embedded within the diagnosis, this thesis demonstrates how devel-opers might navigate such a sensitive topic. To achieve this goal, interviews with... (More)
The rise in new digital technology is bringing with it new ethical questions around how we, as a society, can trust them. However, what if the question was before the technology itself? What if the role of the developers was influencing the way those new technologies were being programmed? This thesis situates itself at the point of exploration, where developers of humanoid social robots look for ways to advance the human-robot interaction as a field as well as getting social robots commercial-ised. By placing it in the context of depression diagnosis, where seemingly there are gender norms embedded within the diagnosis, this thesis demonstrates how devel-opers might navigate such a sensitive topic. To achieve this goal, interviews with developers and an ethnography of the HRI Conference were undertaken. Through a socio-legal and digital feminist theoretical framework, this thesis pinpoints the huge potential normative consequences due to embedded norms which derive from de-velopers themselves, as well as the data. This thesis concludes with seven policy recommendations to support developers in their exploration. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
Tanqueray, Laetitia LU
supervisor
organization
course
SOLM02 20211
year
type
H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
subject
keywords
Socially Assistive Robots, HRI, Sociology of Law, Depression Diagnosis, Gender norms
language
English
id
9065319
date added to LUP
2021-10-11 10:45:43
date last changed
2021-10-11 10:45:43
@misc{9065319,
  abstract     = {{The rise in new digital technology is bringing with it new ethical questions around how we, as a society, can trust them. However, what if the question was before the technology itself? What if the role of the developers was influencing the way those new technologies were being programmed? This thesis situates itself at the point of exploration, where developers of humanoid social robots look for ways to advance the human-robot interaction as a field as well as getting social robots commercial-ised. By placing it in the context of depression diagnosis, where seemingly there are gender norms embedded within the diagnosis, this thesis demonstrates how devel-opers might navigate such a sensitive topic. To achieve this goal, interviews with developers and an ethnography of the HRI Conference were undertaken. Through a socio-legal and digital feminist theoretical framework, this thesis pinpoints the huge potential normative consequences due to embedded norms which derive from de-velopers themselves, as well as the data. This thesis concludes with seven policy recommendations to support developers in their exploration.}},
  author       = {{Tanqueray, Laetitia}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  note         = {{Student Paper}},
  title        = {{Behind Every Social Robot Finds itself a Community of Developers: A socio-legal exploration on developers of humanoid social robots with a focus on the context of depression diagnosis and its embedded gender norms.}},
  year         = {{2021}},
}