IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2022 - 50

Commentary
[8]. Quality of care varies as well-only 11% of childcare
nationwide is accredited. All told, these access,
affordability, and quality shortages result in serious
losses in the parents' earnings, productivity, and revenue,
totaling an estimated $57 billion per year [9].
Much the same case can be made with respect to
care for the elderly, especially as their adult children
often have to take on the caregiving during their own
prime income-earning years.
That is just the United States; it can be even worse
elsewhere. China, South Korea, and Japan, due in
part to their cultures' long work hours and their
aging societies, are on the leading edge of embracing
caregiving technologies, with trial deployments
of robots well underway. As birth rates in these countries
decrease and lifespans increase, there are fewer
young people to take care of an explosion of older
people. An eye-popping " one-third of the Japanese
government's budget is allocated to developing
carebots " [10].
Can robots save the day? Maybe. Technologically,
robots may never be as good at caregiving as
humans can be, but-given the huge demand and
low supply-they may be good enough.
Demand for existing consumer robots-not just
Roomba, the robot vacuum cleaner, and its kind,
but also some caregiving robots-is already skyrocketing.
According to an industry research firm, the
consumer robot market will have a value of $34.1 billion
by 2022-up from just $3.8 billion in 2015 [11].
Japan, a leader in the robotic service sector, expects
its domestic industry alone for caregiving robots for
the elderly to grow to $3.8 billion by 2035, at which
point a full third of Japan's population will be 65 or
older [12]. According to Merrill Lynch, the global
personal robot market hit $17.4 billion in 2020 [13].
New technologies tend to sneak up on us like that.
(If you do not believe me, go ask Siri or Alexa.)
However, not only is robot caregiving technologically
and economically possible, but it is also
socially plausible, due to the low status and low pay
of human caregiving. The problem here is therefore
not so much that robot caregiving will sweep over
us, but that it will sweep over us with many serious
social, emotional, political, and ethical issues of caregiving
by robots left unaddressed. In other words,
the wildfire spread and impact of smartphones,
social media, and GPS is about to happen again with
caregiving robots. That may in turn entirely change
how we approach caregiving.
50
Bots on the job
It is important to get a clear sense of just how
many robots are already out there and on the job.
Though Japan is leading the " carebot " charge,
many countries all over the world are not far behind.
These robots may range in size, appearance, function,
and purpose, but they all serve to fill caregiving
gaps. BeanQ, for example, is made by Roobo
in China and has been called " childcare for the
masses " [14]. Designed to be " an early educator,
sharing some of the parental burdens, " BeanQ is
reportedly already used in millions of middle-class
Chinese households. The robot responds with simple
words and phrases and an array of emoji facial
expressions displayed on a large screen that serves
as its face. It also has a " remote babysitting " mode,
automatically taking snapshots of the kids and
uploading them for their parents to see online. The
Care-o-bot, from Fraunhofer IPA in Germany, is at
work in a number of German-assisted living facilities
[15]. Like the social directors, aides, and volunteers
typically employed in such facilities, Care-o-bot
does not just bring meals to the residents, but also
plays memory games with them to help keep their
minds sharp. The Dinsow eldercare robot, from CT
Asia Robotics in Thailand, helps seniors remember
to take their pills, tracks their health, and serves as
a videophone for calls with family and doctors [16].
It entertains, too-doubling as a karaoke machine.
ElliQ, from Intiriont Robotics in the United States,
is a social robot companion that engages its owner
throughout the day, providing appointment reminders
and assisting with video calls to friends and family.
It can suggest a walk when a human is overdue
for some exercise. ElliQ can also share a spontaneous
fact or humorous video [17].
There are many, many more on the way or
already on the market. Pricewise, they range from
a few hundred dollars to hundreds of thousands of
dollars. As with every other high-tech product-from
televisions to smartphones-each new version will
likely be more alluring, more dazzling, and more
affordable than the last. According to the McKinsey
Global Institute, the average robot price fell by half
in real terms from 1987 to 2018 and fell even further
relative to the cost of human labor [18].
A growing and global demand for care that cannot
be met the old-fashioned way, then, is being met
in a new way. Is not that how it is supposed to work?
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2022

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