ABSTRACT
Service robotics growth will drop its production costs in the long run, and thus, become accessible to the general consumer. Currently, the legislation regulates these robots as products. However, the European Commission (EC) has recently acknowledged that current laws do not cover areas such as autonomous cars, service robots, co-bots, or 3D printing technologies. In this chapter, I identify several risk scenarios for consumer robotics for wheeled passenger carriers, lower-limb exoskeletons, and mobile servant robots. I use several examples to illustrate that the classification of robots as products or medical devices is not very clear in reality, and is often used by the industry to avoid tortuous compliance processes. I support the idea that the industry often uses words to mislead consumers, and that “certified safety” is not the same as “perceived safety,” which is the user’s perception of the level of danger when interacting with a robot, and the user’s level of comfort during the interaction with a robot.
