Autonomy, not care

In many conversations about automation, there is one criticism that comes up so often and so reliably that it seems like a reflex. Let's try it -- just mentally fill in the retort.

A: They're even making robots that care for the sick and elderly!
B: ______________________________________!

But is it, really?

I've talked about this with quite a few people, and when I ask them to elaborate, most of them paint a dreary picture of senior citizen farms operated entirely by lifeless automata.

Of course that idea suffers from the same problem as most futurology and naive science fiction: it simply takes some aspect of today's world and replaces humans with robots. Sure, it's a terrible idea to lock away old people in isolated places and deprive them of most types of human contact just so they don't bother us young folks -- but we are doing that already. The problem is not the automation of these places, but the fact that they exist in the first place; substituting robots for care workers merely serves to emphasize the inhumanity of it all.

I was prompted to write this post by a conversation between two old women I heard on the bus this morning. One was telling the other that she had recently moved into a retirement home because she didn't want to impose on her family any more. However, now she felt like she was imposing on the care workers and service staff, and she felt like the fact that they were getting paid for it hardly made it any better. For some time, the conversation devolved into the familiar barrage of complaints about the impersonal treatment at the retirement home, the accents of the care workers (most of whom are immigrants), and the other inmates clients at the institution. The point was -- the woman said -- that she just hated having to depend on others in everything she did.

You see where this is going.

Robots are not people. Less tautologically, robots do not "replace" people. Sometimes they are employed to do things that could also be done by people, but the way they do them is usually quite different from what people would do. (Yes, people can manufacture cars; but their bodies are not well adapted to that purpose, so they have to do it in roundabout and inefficient ways.)

Robots are tools.

I don't mind imposing on my computer to look me up the titles of some obscure TV show episode. I would mind imposing on a librarian to do the same.

I'm sure my neighbor in the wheelchair often wishes he could get around without it; but he would hate it far more if he had to have two people carry him around all the time.

And, importantly, he would use their services far less than he uses the wheelchair. (Just as I simply wouldn't look up most of the things I do now.) Cost plays a part here, but also shame and effort.

Using a tool is not dehumanizing, it's empowering. Using a tool instead of making other people serve you is even less dehumanizing, as it saves those other people from essentially being treated as tools.

(Of course the usual caveats about technological unemployment apply here, but they've been amply discussed elsewhere.)

What does this mean in practice?

Rather than replace the already-terrible institution of retirement homes with the even more obviously terrible institution of automated retirement homes, technology will increasingly enable old people to lead self-determined lives. Automating care means developing tools that help old people live without the need of constant human supervision and assistance -- thus obviating the need for centralized institutions where a limited number of care workers cater to the needs of a host of old people.

This is another instance of technology allowing for more fine-grained and personalized solutions -- and thus for better flexibility -- than systems dependent on human components. But to make it work, we have to move past the "naive science fiction" fallacy that I've described. Instead of imagining robots doing what humans have always done, we have to develop a sense for what we can do differently using technology. With automated care -- or maybe we should rather call it "autonomy solutions" -- entirely new kinds of lifestyles will become accessible to the old and infirm. Many of the reasons why old people today move into (or get sent to) retirement homes will become obsolete -- as long as we remember that technology is supposed to optimize people's lives, rather than the institutions that currently serve them.

EDIT: Just to clarify, this was originally posted on my blog (http://opaqueforest.blogspot.com), some parts of which I will port to Steemit and then continue it here.