Robot Assistance in Medication Management Tasks

Abstract

A robot in the home of an elderly person providing assistive care will face many difficult decisions. I focus on a set of tasks that are very common and often stressful. Medication management tasks are ideal for a robot to assist in, but even a task with straightforward guidelines and goals can have numerous moral issues brought about by the social interaction between the human and the robot. Building on artificial intelligence work in production systems, decision theory, and analogical reasoning I am developing the architectural components necessary for these interactions. These components are based on computational models that have been informed by work in psychology and occupational therapy. It is my goal that by bringing these disciplines together I will be able to help design robots that are more morally acceptable, safer, and overall do a better job at assisting those in need.