St Mary's Academics Join Consultation on 'Healthcare Robots'

Academics from St Mary’s University, Twickenham joined a roundtable consultation in London on the subject of robots and other ‘artificial intelligence’ devices assisting with the healthcare of the elderly. The consultation was hosted by the independent think-tank BioCentre at the Royal Society of Arts on Thursday 9th July 2014. Prof Geoffrey Hunt, Dr Elisabetta Canetta and postgraduate student Ian Berle were invited to contribute to the discussion. The roundtable’s brief was to bring together representatives from different faith traditions to explore ideas and values such as ‘human identity’. Prof Hunt opened the session with a presentation on Artificial intelligence: An attempt to transcend the transcendent? One emergent theme of the discussion was that while such ‘smart’ devices might assist compassionate carers they could not possibly substitute for compassion. For further information please contact Prof Hunt, Centre for Bioethics and Emerging Technologies, at geoffrey.hunt@stmarys.ac.uk.