An Ethical Framework for the Design, Development, Implementation, and Assessment of Drones Used in Public Healthcare
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An Ethical Framework for the Design, Development, Implementation, and Assessment of Drones Used in Public Healthcare Dylan Cawthorne1 · Aimee Robbins‑van Wynsberghe2 Received: 2 January 2020 / Accepted: 6 June 2020 © The Author(s) 2020
Abstract The use of drones in public healthcare is suggested as a means to improve efficiency under constrained resources and personnel. This paper begins by framing drones in healthcare as a social experiment where ethical guidelines are needed to protect those impacted while fully realizing the benefits the technology offers. Then we propose an ethical framework to facilitate the design, development, implementation, and assessment of drones used in public healthcare. Given the healthcare context, we structure the framework according to the four bioethics principles: beneficence, non-maleficence, autonomy, and justice, plus a fifth principle from artificial intelligence ethics: explicability. These principles are abstract which makes operationalization a challenge; therefore, we suggest an approach of translation according to a values hierarchy whereby the top-level ethical principles are translated into relevant human values within the domain. The resulting framework is an applied ethics tool that facilitates awareness of relevant ethical issues during the design, development, implementation, and assessment of drones in public healthcare. Keywords Robot ethics · Value-sensitive design (VSD) · Values hierarchy · Applied ethics · Public healthcare · Drones
* Dylan Cawthorne [email protected] Aimee Robbins‑van Wynsberghe A.L.Robbins‑[email protected] 1
The Faculty of Engineering, Drone Center, Mærsk Mc-Kinney Møller Institute, University of Southern Denmark, Campusvej 55, 5230 Odense M, Denmark
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Ethics/Philosophy of Technology Section, Department of Values, Technology and Innovation, Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management, Delft University of Technology, 2600 AA Delft, The Netherlands
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D. Cawthorne, A. Robbins-van Wynsberghe
Introduction In recent years the number, capabilities, and applications of non-military drones have grown exponentially, surpassing military use in 2013 (Choi-Fitzpatrick et al. 2016). Drones are flying robots—unoccupied aircraft that can fly at some level of autonomy (Villasenor 2012) and reliably sustain flight in order to perform useful functions (Clarke 2014b). Hobbyists, activists, journalists, film makers, humanitarian organizations, and inspection agencies are all exploring the possibilities for drones to realize their interests, and all have been confronted with the societal risks involved. Drones can give people “eyes” in places they might not otherwise be able to reach, e.g. activists wishing to observe the maltreatment of animals behind high fences impossible to climb (Taylor 2019) or to observe protests to report in journalism (McKay 2019). The use of drones in humanitarian contexts is especially enticing in areas with limited infrastructure and challenging terrain (Cawthorne and Cenci 2019; Meier et al. 2
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