TY - JOUR A1 - Schönmann, Manuela A1 - Bodenschatz, Anja A1 - Uhl, Matthias A1 - Walkowitz, Gari T1 - Contagious humans: A pandemic's positive effect on attitudes towards care robots JF - Technology in Society N2 - History has shown that attitudes toward new technologies can change abruptly following disruptive events. During the COVID-19 pandemic, it became apparent that care robots enable increased social isolation. This feature of robotic care usually raises strong ethical concerns about potentially decreased comfort for the care-dependent. In a large-scale online study, we tested the influence of the pandemic on people's affective attitudes toward care robots. In vignettes on different care scenarios, we measured participants' perceived comfort levels in situations with care robots and human caregivers while controlling for their fear of infection with a viral disease. We found that people generally feel less comfortable with a care robot than with a human caregiver. However, those who had a strong fear of being infected during the pandemic did not devalue a care robot compared to a human caregiver. While care robots remain ethically contested, this study shows that affective attitudes toward care robots may change significantly if they can address an urgent need. UR - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techsoc.2024.102464 Y1 - 2024 UR - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techsoc.2024.102464 UR - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:573-43998 SN - 1879-3274 VL - 2024 IS - 76 PB - Elsevier CY - Amsterdam ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Schönmann, Manuela A1 - Uhl, Matthias ED - de Witt, Claudia ED - Gloerfeld, Christina ED - Wrede, Silke Elisabeth T1 - Eine ethische Perspektive auf KI in der Bildung T2 - Künstliche Intelligenz in der Bildung UR - https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-40079-8_21 Y1 - 2023 UR - https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-40079-8_21 SN - 978-3-658-40079-8 SP - 433 EP - 453 PB - Springer VS CY - Wiesbaden ER -