Abstract

The development of assistive robotics and anthropomorphic AI allows machines to increasingly enter into the daily lives of human beings and gradually become part of their lives. Robots have made a strong entry in the field of assistive behaviour. In this chapter, we will ask to what extent technology can satisfy people’s personal needs and desires as compared to human agents in the field of care. The industry of assistive technology burst out of the gate at the beginning of the century with very strong innovation and development and is currently attracting large sources of public and private investment and public attention. We believe that a better-defined and more fundamental philosophical-ethical analysis of the values at stake in care robots is needed. To this end, we will focus on the current status of care robots (types of care robots, their functioning and their design) and we will provide a philosophical-ethical analysis that offers a solid framework for the debate surrounding the potential risks and benefits of implementing assistive robots in people’s daily lives.