Humans and Intelligent Machines: Underlying Values

Background Given the complexity of providing dementia care in hospitals, integrating technology into practice is a high challenge and an important opportunity. Although there are a growing demand and interest in using social robots in a variety of care settings to support dementia care, little is known about the impacts of the robotics and their application in care settings, i.e., what worked, in which situations, and how. Methods Scientific databases and Google Scholar were searched to identify publications published since 2000. The inclusion criteria consisted of older people with dementia, care setting, and social robot PARO. Results A total of 29 papers were included in the review. Content analysis identified 3 key benefits of and 3 barriers to the use of PARO. Main benefits include: reducing negative emotion and behavioral symptoms, improving social engagement, and promoting positive mood and quality of care experience. Key barriers are: cost and workload, infection concerns, and stigma and ethical issues. This review reveals 3 research gaps: (a) the users’ needs and experiences remain unexplored, (b) few studies investigate the process of how to use the robot effectively to meet clinical needs, and (c) theory should be used to guide implementation. Conclusions Most interventions conducted have been primarily researcher-focused. Future research should pay more attention to the clinical needs of the patient population and develop strategies to overcome barriers to the adoption of PARO in order to maximize patient benefits. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1186/s12877-019-1244-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

With the emergence of CRISPR technology, targeted editing of a wide variety of genomes is no longer an abstract hypothetical, but occurs regularly. As application areas of CRISPR are exceeding beyond research and biomedical therapies, new and existing ethical concerns abound throughout the global community about the appropriate scope of the systems' use. Here we review fundamental ethical issues including the following: 1) the extent to which CRISPR use should be permitted; 2) access to CRISPR applications; 3) whether a regulatory framework(s) for clinical research involving human subjects might accommodate all types of human genome editing, including editing of the germline; and 4) whether international regulations governing inappropriate CRISPR utilization should be crafted and publicized. We conclude that moral decision making should evolve as the science of genomic engineering advances and hold that it would be reasonable for national and supranational legislatures to consider evidence-based regulation of certain CRISPR applications for the betterment of human health and progress.