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re:publica 18 - Alle Sessions Podcast
Do Robots and Digitisation really fit the demands of an ageing society?

Do Robots and Digitisation really fit the demands of an ageing society?

re:publica 18 - Alle Sessions vor 8 Jahren

Demographic change is ongoing in countries like Germany and Japan, as a consequence, societies and health care systems need to adapt. A possible solution to tackle this challenge of a super-ageing society might be digitalisation and robotics. A look to Ja

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Rainer Wieching, Jens Grudno, Pepper (aka Robbie), Sarah Cosentino
In Germany as well as in Japan and most high-income and emergent
economy countries increased lifespan of population has led to a
high number of elderly people, with a need for prevention, daily
assistance and care. This context requires conceptually new elderly
care solutions, with the aim to support the decreasing percentages
of the human-based care. Smart data and robot-based solutions for
elderly care could possibly provide conditions for support that may
lead to a better quality of life. But ageing is not only an
immediate personal issue but also a salient factor in crucial
public policies, such as pensions, health and long-term care. There
is a clear need to consider, what norms and values ought to be
integrated into what kind of robotic solution and how an intended
integration can be realized in design processes. Questions of this
kind were asked earlier and with an ongoing progress in robotic
development, but finding appropriate answers seems to get
increasingly difficult. Meanwhile robots are intended to be
partners of social interaction in different contexts and situations
of life, include elderly care. IEEE, pleading for an ethically
aligned design of artificial intelligence and autonomous systems,
pointed out that in the algorithmic age we have to “prioritize the
increase of human wellbeing as our metric for progress” (IEEE
2016). For designing care robots this requirement is of particular
importance since end-users have a special vulnerability. Despite of
the fact that robotic solutions have enormous potential, the needs
for ethical legitimation of a targeted implementation into care
systems should not get out of sight. There are still missing
answers to various questions concerning socio-technical change,
e.g. such regarding (data) privacy, and more ethical questions will
reveal. The forthcoming challenges can only be mastered if all
involved stakeholder work together at the same purposes. For this
reason, we have establised this panel in order to answer those
questions together with the re:publica audience, and we invite you
to what we believe will be a fruitful discussion of these emerging
topics in future ICT and healthcare.