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Tom Sorell spoke at two events on assistive technology organized by the 3TU consortium—a permanent technology and ethics collaboration between the Universities of Delft, Eindhoven and Twente – on 23 and 24 April. In Delft he co-presented with Heather Draper on the ethics-related focus group results from the ACCOMPANY project. In Eindhoven he spoke on Telecare, replying to Commentaries on a paper he published in 2012 with Heather Draper on Telecare and Surveillance.

Professor Tom Sorell spoke with Robotics Business Review about these six values and how roboticists can incorporate them into their designs.

Professor Tom Sorell was recently featured in the CNN article:

Meet Mr. Robin, grandma's robot buddy by Kieron Monks

An extract from the article:

But there are ethical questions to address too, as service robots may threaten as well as enable autonomy, according to researchers Tom Sorell and Heather Draper, authors of research paper "Robot carers, ethics, and older people."

They say that focus groups with elderly people reflect a desire for a limited role for robotic support. "They wanted the robot to be assertive at times such as in reminding them to take tablets," says Draper, professor of biomedical ethics at the University of Birmingham, in the UK. "They were willing to be nagged for a direct health benefit rather than health promotion like standing in front of the TV, turning it off and telling them to get up and drink water. They did not like that."

Sorell and Draper have explored what is the ideal role for a service robot and recommend a focus on creating functions that enable users to act for themselves, rather than an empathic relationship with a human surrogate. It is an issue that has divided roboticists; Accompany has developed "coach" and "carer" roles, while Japanese firm AIST create pet-stylerobotic seal helpers.

A new blog article has been published by Professor Tom Sorell asking: What difference can robots make to the lives of elderly people living alone? Robots can help with cleaning and other tasks, thus reducing the work that elderly people might have to do in their own homes; a special category of robots can even offer a form of companionship.