Service robots in long-term care: a consumer-centric view

Service robots with advanced intelligence capabilities can potentially transform servicescapes. However, limited attention has been given to how consumers experiencing vulnerabilities, particularly those with disabilities, envisage the characteristics of robots’ prospective integration into emotionally intense servicescapes, such as long-term care (LTC). We take an interdisciplinary approach conducting three exploratory studies with consumers with disabilities involving Community Philosophy, LEGO® Serious Play®, and Design Thinking methods. Addressing a lack of consumer-centric research, we offer a three-fold contribution by 1) developing a conceptualization of consumer-conceived value of robots in LTC, which are envisaged as a supporting resource offering consumers opportunities to realize value; 2) empirically evidencing pathogenic vulnerabilities as a potential value-destruction factor to underscore the importance of integrating service robots research with a service inclusion paradigm; and 3) providing a theoretical extension and clarification of prior characterizations of robots’ empathetic and emotion-related AI capabilities. Consumers with disabilities conceive robots able to stimulate and regulate emotions by mimicking cognitive and behavioral empathy, but unable to express affective and moral empathy, which is central to care experience. While providing support for care practices, for the foreseeable future, service robots will not, in themselves, actualize the experience of “being cared for.”