Mundanely Miraculous: The Robot in Healthcare Norman Makoto Su∗, Leslie S. Liuy, and Amanda Lazary ∗School of Informatics and Computing yBiomedical and Health Informatics Indiana University Bloomington University of Washington
[email protected] [email protected],
[email protected] ABSTRACT The texts which surround our everyday lives and the methods As both hero and villain, robots have played prominent roles by which their meaning is conveyed are powerful forms of in media such as films and books. Now, robots are no longer knowledge [25]. Discursive strategies socially construct a re- hidden away from the public conscious in fictive worlds or ality that we intersubjectively [4] share on what robots are and real-life factories. Robots are becoming a real part of our should be; at the same time, it narrowly delimits what robots everyday encounters in environments such as healthcare set- are not. Hence, our encounters with real-life robots are neces- tings. In this paper, we describe a discourse analysis of 60 sarily influenced by discourse. Scholars have found that scifi, YouTube videos that showcase robots in healthcare activities. traditional stories, religious texts, and cultural mores shape or Our narrative weaves three discourses that construct visions reinforce attitudes towards robots [8, 19, 16, 28]; for exam- of the healthcare robot: (1) the miraculous robot as the robot ple, users interacting with robots that do not meet their “ex- that enhances patient care; (2) the mundane robot as the in- pectations” may feel uncomfortable and have difficulty with nocuous robot that integrates into the workflow seamlessly; accepting robots’ professed benefits [8].