Robots and care of the ageing self: An emerging economy of loneliness

Abstract

What happens when caring for the ageing population is so devalued that robots are deployed to care for our elders? We examine the growing employment of companion robots in elder care as one response to a critical labour shortage and loneliness epidemic shared across the Global North. Reflecting on interviews conducted with robot engineers, researchers, NGO care providers and local government, we examine five robots under development or in use in the UK and the USA. We ask if machines providing emotional and social care signal a diminishment of what it means to be human or if robots and automation present a promising solution to our elder care crisis. We do not evaluate the efficacy of robotic technology but identify and question assumptions concerning what it means to be human in modernity and examine companion or social robots at a moment of crisis and the substantive reorganisation of social reproduction wrought by neoliberal austerity. We end by calling for a reimagining of elder care, in which the care of our elders is radically revalued and where robots assist and support workers in their difficult and skilled labour of care.