Abstract
When the social relevance of robotic applications is addressed today, the use of assistive technology in care settings is almost always the first example. So-called care robots are presented as a solution to the nursing crisis, despite doubts about their technological readiness and the lack of concrete usage scenarios in everyday nursing practice. We inquire into this interconnection of social robotics and care. We show how both are made available for each other in three arenas: innovation policy, care organization, and robotic engineering. First, we analyze the discursive “logics” of care robotics within European innovation policy, second, we disclose how care robotics is encountering a historically grown conflict within health care organization, and third we show how care scenarios are being used in robotic engineering. From this diagnosis, we derive a threefold critique of robotics in healthcare, which calls attention to the politics, historicity, and social situatedness of care robotics in elderly care.
Highlights
When the social relevance of robotic applications is addressed today, the use of assistive technology in nursing settings is almost always the first example (Hergesell et al 2020)
We address a historic conflict in elderly care organization and show how the introduction of care robots has changed the constellation in this conflict
In the second section of our critique of care robots, we look at the organizational structures of elderly care as well as the enforcement of partial interests in the context of care robotics
Summary
When the social relevance of robotic applications is addressed today, the use of assistive technology in nursing settings is almost always the first example (Hergesell et al 2020). In recent times, more projects have sought to align their research efforts with actual care needs (Sabanovic 2014; Riek 2017; Jeon 2020), criticize anthropomorphic robot ideas (Duffy 2003; Sandini and Sciutti 2018; Weber 2005) or use participatory methods (Hornecker et al 2020; Björling and Rose 2019; Lee et al 2017; Lee and Riek 2018) this is still not a mandatory requirement in mainstream robotics research. Each of the sections can be understood as a standalone analysis of the phenomenon, yet none explains the entire phenomenon Overall, this critique will offer a reflexive explanation of why care robotics has become a discursive solution to the nursing crisis and shows that the technology development at its current state is not a solution at any level. We need to instigate a critical debate about the political, organizational, and epistemic assumptions built into much of the work directed at making robotics a solution in elderly care
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