Robotized Functionings Environments. Is it Possible an Inclusive Robotics?

Abstract

The conceptual materials that serve as a basis for our reflections in this contribution are, on the one hand, a “discursive” approach to the relationship between users and technologies, in which we take into consideration the respective sets of values, representations and social practices that make up the discourse of the users and the artefactual discourse materialized in technological devices. On the other hand, the capability approach of Sen and Nussbaum, as a widely accepted and influential ethical-political paradigm. With such materials, we will try to define the profiles to which a robotics of interaction with human beings that can be defined as an inclusive robotics, in relation to people with disabilities and children, should fit. The responsible introduction of inclusive robotics, as a mediating factor in functionings environments, requires that the general obligations of protection, full rights and well-being underlying the discourse and normative framework of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, be taken as a reference in order to ensure careful protection towards the vulnerability of these groups of people.