Registration Link: https://hkuems1.hku.hk/hkuems/ec_hdetail.aspx?ueid=86066
Title: “The Ethics of Technological Solutions to Loneliness”
Speaker:
Dr Zohar Lederman
Post-doctoral Fellow, Medical Ethics and Humanities Unit, School of Clinical Medicine, HKUMed
Abstract:
Loneliness is a major public health concern, particularly during pandemics such as Covid. It is extremely common, and it poses a major risk to human health. Technological solutions including social media, robots, and virtual reality have been advocated and implemented to relieve loneliness, and their use will undoubtedly increase in the near future. This paper explores the use of technological solutions from a normative perspective, asking whether and to what extent such measures should indeed be relied upon. The conclusion is that technological solutions are unquestionably part of the solution to loneliness, but that they cannot and should not constitute the whole solution. It is important to note that this is not a straw‐man argument, as several organizations and scholars have strictly focused on such technological solutions for loneliness.
About the Speaker:
Zohar Lederman is an emergency medicine physician with a PhD in bioethics from the National University of Singapore and formal undergraduate training in the humanities with a focus on philosophy. He is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the Unit. Whenever not hiking or running, Zohar researches several topics in bioethics including loneliness and One Health Ethics. His work has been published in the top bioethics journals including the Journal of Medical Ethics, Bioethics, and Public Health Ethics.
Original Article: Please see attached file.
Enquiry: Please contact Ms. May Fung (mehu@hku.hk).
Photos for review
