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Robotics, virtual and augmented reality, implants and wearables are some of the machine/body interfaces that are moving us into a new era of healthcare.

Over the last few years, machine-led caring has led to a wider acceptance of fully programmed machines looking after our well-being. This raises a number of ethical concerns; emotional attachment to social machines designed to create empathy and trust, addiction to personal fitness indicators, the harvesting of our personal information for health data commons, and the (biased) use of this for predictive modelling and monitoring.

In a special edition of Click at this year's FutureFest, Gareth Mitchell is joined by a panel of experts including a VR specialist, a doctor involved in using AI for diagnosis and a leading roboticist to discuss whether this tech helps our health systems to become more, not less, human. Is it ever possible for a machine to be a substitute for human touch and intimacy?

This debate was curated by Ghislaine Boddington as part of her co-curation of Nesta鈥檚 FutureFest.

Picture: Realms of Possibility Installation by Glider (FutureFest), Credit: Christopher Ratcliffe

Producer: Colin Grant