New conference cycle: In Hands of Machines. The Future of Care Technologies

Lucy Suchman, professor of Anthropology of Science and Technology at Lancaster University, will be delivering the cycle's inaugural speech on Thursday 19 January at 7 p.m. at Palau Macaya. The cycle is organised by the UAB's research group STS-b (Barcelona Science and Technology Studies Group).

16/01/2017

There has been an increase in the past decades in the importance of robots in the economy and in society, but this issue has not been accompanied by an in-depth discussion of the social model it represents nor by the way in which to handle interactions between humans and robots.

With the conference cycle “En mans de màquines. El futur de les tecnologies de la cura” (In Hands of Machines. The Future of Care Technologies), the STS-b research group aims to provide a space in which to reflect on the development of robotics and other technologies applied to patient care, with special attention to the elderly, children, and people with chronic diseases.

The cycle, organised in collaboration with the Obra Social "la Caixa", includes a total of five activities, two of them the opening and closing conferences, open to the public, and three seminars with the participation of professionals from the economic, administrative, social and other similar sectors. The closing conference will take place on 19 May.

The inaugural conference is entitled "The Fantasy of Social Robots: reconfiguring the future of care technologies" and will be give by Lucy Suchman, professor of Anthropology of Science and Technology at Lancaster University. She will reflect on the main ethical and political controversies represented by the incorporation of social robots - and other technologies - in the health care area, with special emphasis on how to manage interactions between humans and robots.

Lucy Suchman pioneered the study of interactions between humans and machines with her book Plans and Situated Actions: The Problem of Human-machine Communication (1987). An updated version was published under the title of Human-Machine Reconfigurations: Plans and Situated Action in 2007. She graduated from University of California, Berkeley with a PhD in Social and Cultural Anthropology. Before becoming a faculty member at Lancaster University, she worked for over 20 years at the Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center as Manager of the Work Practice and Technology research group.

Miquel Domènech, lecturer and coordinator of STS-b, will be in charge of presenting and moderating the debate which will be held after the conference.