Recognition of professional career

22 October 2025 | 13.00h to 13.30h

www.iri.upc.edu | LinkedIn

CARME TORRAS

Head of the Robotic Perception and Manipulation Group, Institute of Robotics and Industrial Informatics (CSIC-UPC)

MSc in mathematics (UB), MSc in computer science (UMass), doctor in computer science (UPC), head of the research group on assistive robotics at the Robotics Institute, CSIC-UPC. National Research Award 2020 for her contributions to intelligent and social robotics. Manel Xifra Award for Technology Transfer 2024. Creu de Sant Jordi 2024.

Committed to the promotion of technoethics, her novel The Vestigial Heart, published by MIT Press, is used in courses on ‘AI ethics’ at universities in North America and Europe. She is a member of the Observatory of Ethics in AI of Catalonia and vice-president of the Ethics Committee of CSIC.

Presentation: Co-design and ethical deployment of healthcare robotics

Co-designing robotic assistants with all stakeholders in a healthcare context reveals key aspects that boost their usability in the real-world. Three robot prototypes to feed patients, provide cognitive training and help nursing personnel in hazardous tasks have been developed in this way.

Among the lessons learned, the importance of interdisciplinarity, human-centric deployment and personalization stand out, as well as the need to take into account the ethical perspectives of all the involved participants, from researchers and entrepreneurs to healthcare personnel and patients. While social assistive robotics shares several ethics issues with AI, embodiment makes a huge difference, increasing benefits in some aspects, and risk in others.