Our Jobs Are Disappearing: Do Robots Care?
Present Day Robots
Originating from the word “slave”, a robot is a programmable machine which can carry out a series of actions to complete a task. Robots are becoming increasingly popular, especially due to their ability to automate tasks, and this is reflected in digital society. Robotics, artificial intelligence and robots, alongside their potential impact on society, is often reported and discussed in media. A stigma can be found against robots, especially within theorised robot takeovers. However, in reality, robots are starting to solve labour shortages, and humanoid robots like Pepper can even help to improve mental health. All the same, communities have concerns. So, how can digital society help us embrace robots, especially in the struggling care and social care sector?
Robots in Care
Present use includes mental health care, with robots such as the aforementioned Pepper or Nao helping people to meet social requirements. There are animal robots such as the Aibo, priced much more affordably than other biomimetic robots, that can be used similarly. Humanoid robots have been trialled to improve the communication skills of children with ASD. The strengths of robotics mainly lies in their assistive technologies in present day, for example by enabling potential candidates for residential care to remain in their homes for longer by preventing hospitalisation through monitoring. Surgical robotics is also developing, with robots being used for minimally invasive surgery due to their precision abilities that are beyond human ability.
The Future
But, what about the future? With proven use in hospitality, the future of robotics is expected to continue to flourish in elder care, to assist with routine care tasks, improve patient hygiene, and to help with monitoring health by taking measurements like temperature, or blood. However, peers have expressed concern about related automated processes such as chatbots which are far less intimate than personal care, calling them “cold”, and another peer worried about data being stored and used to “develop their bots”…
At the moment, robots are expensive. While their usage in care can reduce the cost of staffing, and help to alleviate the burden of personal care in terms of time, they are not yet a total solution. There are concerns about the quality of care. These could be alleviated with the normalisation of robots within digital society. With popularity, robots could become more affordable and any concerns about robots could be alleviated due to the exposure of society to the development of technology.
Underneath The Skin
Privacy
Privacy is a recurring issue throughout digital society, but it is especially relevant when a robot may be able to learn very personal aspects of one’s life. Michael Stevenson touched on data security and the ethics within AI, which is often a core aspect of robotics, discussing how our actions are preserved in a digital world, and how data that is collected upon users can be stolen and leaked. Companies need to be transparent and ethical when they decide to release such well informed robots. Data protection needs to be carefully considered, and the companies should be honest about the data that is collected. For example, a robot with vision may store images of a patient in the cloud, which could potentially be accessed nefariously.
Ethics
Robots themselves can, and inevitably will, make wrong choices. Responsibility falls with the company making the robot , rather than a human individual or the owner of the robot, but note the law is still a little unclear. This puts a lot of power in the hands of the robot manufacturers and their programmers. If automated learning is completed by the robot, the data selected to train it should be carefully selected to avoid representing bias and discrimination from society. Furthermore, risk of harm should be very carefully considered, especially where robots could be lifting patients as they could accidentally hurt someone, or where they are responsible for monitoring vitals.
Uncanny Valley
Uncanny Valley is a hypothesised relation between the anthropomorphism of a robot, and a human’s emotional response to it. Specifically android robots can provoke feelings of uneasiness, when they are suspiciously close to human. Watch Kaspar below, if you’d like to experiment this feeling upon yourself.
Patients may dislike this. It may be disorientating, especially for those with a syndrome such as dementia, which can cause hallucinations. Therapy with humanoid robots has been shown to increase empathy in those with advanced dementia.
A humanoid robot would be favourable over an android to represent the care robots moving forward, as has been the case so far. Though androids can look almost human, they may cause distress. Humanoid robots can be easily categorised as non-human; while they borrow human features they couldn’t be mistaken for one. The benefits that robots could have need to be displayed to digital society as that of a helping role, like a servant or an assistant, rather than a mastermind that takes over as has been shown in fiction.
Replacement
Personable Care
Care workers have an important role in society, stepping in to assist with increasingly complex long-term health conditions of our aging population, often working long hours for minimum wage. Social care workers in particular have been recognised as experiencing a “brutal two years” during the coronavirus pandemic. As it stands, robotics could not offer a solution to wholly replace the holistic service provided by these inspirational people.
Overview
The question of whether robots will replace human workers in care remains yet to be answered. Robots have not yet finished developing, and while it is certain that they have the potential to enhance the lives of humans, especially in the care sector, there will need to be rules and regulations in place first. It is such a personal industry, and there is great risk of harm should a robot fail to do its job, leaving gaping questions about who is ultimately responsible. Perhaps those of us living and developing in digital society would be more likely to accept a toy-like Pepper robot serving us with a smile, and feel comforted by this, but for now, there’s too much worry of clinical future. To meet the needs of complex health conditions, robots could become a staple with the right marketing to our booming digital society.
