Robots in Service and Nursing Care Markus Kolstad
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Robots in Service and Nursing Care An Investigation into Japan’s Robot Use and Development Markus Kolstad Supervisors Professor Ankica Babic Associate Professor Yoko Nishihara University of Bergen, Department of Information Science and Media Studies December 1, 2019 i ii Acknowledgments I am extremely thankful for the participation, engagement, support and motivation from everyone that has helped me in my work. I want to thank my main supervisor Ankica Babic for the optimism, encouragement, knowledge and hours spent supervising my research. I want to give another special thanks to Ritsumeikan University and my Japanese supervisor Yoko Nishihara for taking me into your laboratory, spending a lot of time helping, assisting, teaching and encouraging me for the six months I got to do my research in Japan. I was lucky to get you as my second supervisor and thanks to you and your assistant Sato for helping me fund, get in touch and schedule my interviews with professors, robot developers and nursing facilities. Another special thanks to my fiancé Natsu Yamaguchi for assisting me with interviews, transcription and translations. This research would never have been possible without the help and hard work from any of you. Thank you to – - All participants of my experiment and case study groups. - Nursing facility managers and workers for inviting me to your nursing facilities for tours, interviews and great insights. - Professors for inviting me to your offices for interviews and sharing your great knowledge and valuable insights. - Robot developers and company spokesmen from FUJI SOFT INCORPORATED, Robo Garage Co. Ltd. and TOGO SEISAKUSYO CORPORATION for sharing your unique perspectives on robot development. どうもありがとうございました Markus Kolstad iii iv Abstract We are currently seeing a rapid growth in the investment and development of robots to assist or replace human workers and efforts in many aspects of life. Due to Japan’s proportionally large and growing elderly population along with a shrinking workforce, the Japanese government has chosen to promote the research, development, and use of robots in fields such as nursing care. Other countries are also facing the same problems as Japan but have not chosen to promote the alternative futuristic solution to the same extent. In a pursuit to better understand the impact that robots already have and will have on society and everyday life, we have researched the topic of assistive robots in the service and nursing care context. Through a design science framework and mixed methods approach, performing semi-structured interviews with robot developers, professors in robotics and nursing care staff, observations on the use of robots in real-life settings, case studies, and one experiment, we have developed a comprehensive analysis and understanding of the research problem. To analyze the data, content analysis and the grounded theory were used. An experiment and two case studies were used to investigate attitudes, perceived benefits, and disadvantages of using robots. Furthermore, interviews and observations were conducted at nursing care facilities to investigate the possibility of assisting or even substituting humans with robots in settings that usually require a sense of human warmth and care. Previous research often focusses on individual robots or on literature review without field data. It would seem like the literature is lacking a deeper perspective, while at the same time, painting a wider picture of the domain itself. Therefore, this research investigated the development and experiences with robots that already exist and have been tested in real-world settings. The findings of the study summarized the literature on robots in nursing care, attitudes towards robots across countries and Japan’s strategy for further integrating robots into their society. Other results include real experience with the use of robots in nursing facilities and theories grounded in the ideas and thoughts behind the development of robots commonly used today. An experiment exploring empathy towards robots demonstrated the distinctiveness of robots, as compared to dolls, in enhanced empathy towards them. Two case studies captured views from university students and primary school pupils based on interaction with the humanoid robot Pepper. Pupils found Pepper to be useful and likable, while university students found the interaction to be fun, but frustrating at times. Based on the field studies, we could conclude that Japanese robot developers and researches recommend robots to be inferior to users in terms of intelligence and relationship, but also capable of easy interaction and ideally reading between lines in communication. In nursing care, robots are currently taking the role of pets (Paro and Qoobo), a child (Pepper, Paro, PALRO, RoBoHon, and Smibi) and even as a staff member (Pepper), capable of entertaining and accompanying elderly to help with mental well-being. There might be a current lack of ethical and safety standards for such robots. However, safety and ethical issues are considered by developers and professors in terms of privacy, deception, attachment, mechanical safety. Current robots have different levels of cognitive capacities depending on purpose and interaction style. Goals for the future include improvement on aspects such as intelligence, marketing strategies, and educating users on robots’ capabilities and limitations. v Table of Contents Acknowledgments .................................................................................................................................. ii Abstract ................................................................................................................................................. iv Chapter 1 Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 1 1.1 Research Questions ....................................................................................................................... 1 1.2 Outline of Research Project ........................................................................................................... 2 Chapter 2 Literature Review ............................................................................................................... 3 2.1 Medical Theory ............................................................................................................................. 3 2.2 Related Works ............................................................................................................................... 4 2.2.1 Industry and Types of Robots ................................................................................................. 4 2.2.2 Attitudes Towards Robots ...................................................................................................... 5 2.2.3 Robots and Gender ................................................................................................................. 6 2.3 Robots ............................................................................................................................................ 7 2.3.1 Japans New Robot Strategy .................................................................................................... 9 2.3.2 Use of Robots in Nursing Care ............................................................................................. 10 2.3.3 Do people feel empathy towards robots? ............................................................................. 15 2.4 Japanese Robotic History and Culture ........................................................................................ 16 Chapter 3 Methodologies and Methods ............................................................................................ 18 3.1 Mixed Methods Study Design ..................................................................................................... 18 3.2 Data Gathering ............................................................................................................................ 20 3.2.1 Literature Review ................................................................................................................. 20 3.2.2 Semi-Structured Interview .................................................................................................... 20 3.2.3 Data Analysis in Qualitative Research ................................................................................. 20 3.2.3.1 Qualitative analysis of semi-structured interviews on integrating socially assistive robots into Japanese nursing care ............................................................................................................. 21 3.2.3.2 Content Analysis ............................................................................................................... 21 3.2.3.3 Coding ............................................................................................................................... 21 3.2.3.4 Self-developed Content Analysis Tool - Konta ................................................................. 22 3.2.3.5 The Grounded Theory ....................................................................................................... 22 3.2.4 Experiment on Empathy-level Comparison Between Smibi and Paro; Doll and Robot ...... 23 3.2.5 Case Study ............................................................................................................................ 25 3.2.5.1 One-Shot