IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2022 - 52

Commentary
that robot caregiving touches on matters every bit
as fundamental to human life as social networking
does, we can expect it to present us with equally
fundamental issues. What say this time around, we
address them before it is too late?
Business priorities will not encourage a holistic
development and roll-out of caregiving robots. For
businesses, growth and profit reign supreme. If society
does not make its own decisions about robot
caregiving intentionally-and mighty quickly-the
tech industry will have made them for us without our
even realizing it.
Supply, demand, and a robot-care
future
What will become of the natural-and noble-
human impulse to take care of the needy if technology
is always there as the first, easiest, and cheapest
" solution " ? Do we really want to outsource this cornerstone
of our humanity?
Consider again the " demand " that seems to be
driving the supply of robot caregiving. How real
is this imbalance? Yes, the global demographics
of some aging societies are real enough, but is
the supply of caregiving really as inadequate as it
seems? To some extent, it is actually artificially low.
There could be a lot more human caregiving than
there is-even if that still left a shortfall to be filled
by robots-if only we treated caregiving as highly
valuable and compensated it accordingly. Nothing
gets labor supply off the sidelines like paying more
for what you want. Good caregiving is a skill-or a
gift, however, you want to see it-and it is one of
great value. Spend some time in a nursing home or
daycare. Watch the best child care workers, nurses,
therapists, aides, and teachers. Pay attention to how
loving they are to people they do not even know or
have only known a short time. Try to understand
how they figure out what someone who cannot
speak comprehensibly wants and needs. Imagine
how they keep their good nature even when someone
is being belligerent. Then ask yourself: Could I
do all that?
If our society provided greater support and our
employers were not quite so greedy with our time,
it would be easier to see that there is not a true
caregiving shortage. If we hand caregiving over to
robots without any change in the way society values
caregiving, is there any reason to think that government
and employers will have higher standards for
52
the care provided (say, by insurance) to our friends,
family, and loved ones than they do now?
Where robots should fit in
As long as we keep the risks in mind, robots can
play a healthy role in caregiving. They can-and
should-wash the dirty diapers, but they should not
give the baby the hug before plopping her on the
changing table, nor should they be the ones to kiss
her little belly button when she is all clean. In short,
robots should support human caregivers, not supplant
them. One caregiver cut right to the heart of
whether human caregivers and robot caregivers are
true substitutes for each other: " There is a difference
between care and caring! " [24] an IV drip takes care
of you. The nurses who change it cannot do what the
IV does, but they care about you, which the IV drip
cannot. The very best caregiving may result when
both are present.
People are prone to empathize with humanoid
robots, much as we empathize with other people [25].
We can even come to feel that robots love us. Though
this may sometimes be comforting, it leaves us very
vulnerable to the robots' creators and programmers.
But robot caregivers may have particular strengths
compared to human caregivers, too. First, people
are susceptible to sentimentality. This, of course, can
be a positive aspect of caregiving, but it also has its
downsides. Sentiment can override other concerns,
sometimes even the wishes of the individual being
cared for. Humans are also capable of negative sentiment,
but robot caregivers can likely-though not at
all assuredly-be programmed to not take a dislike
or bias to any particular person or group of people
and treat them unfairly. They will not feel insulted,
put upon, or unappreciated.
Of course, to view robots' lack of sentiment relative
to human caregivers as a virtue is a complicated
call. Humans exercise great discretion in their
caregiving; for example, allowing an older adult
occasional splurges outside their prescribed diet or
allowing a child to stay up late for something special.
There is no form of AI yet capable of that mix
of discretionary behavior. And even the display of
negative sentiment may, in some caregiving situations,
be valuable, helping those cared for to learn
the limits of what they can (and should) expect from
others. Yet, there are situations-for example, latestage
Alzheimer's disease-in which human sentiment
can be so stretched that some support from an
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IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2022

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