IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2017 - 60

Imagining
a "Bot"aful Life

W

A Complicated
Relationship:
Robots as Caregivers,
Humans as Clients

hen word gets out that
there is an activity with free
donuts, a good chat, and a
film about robots, there's no
difficulty gathering a crowd at
the McQueen and the Beverley
senior apartment complexes in
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. It's a social activity about
them that addresses their future, and draws on life experience of their now distant pass. Our get-together is
to probe our relatively new, but increasingly important
relationship with robots.
The elderly men and women at the senior care facilities are of varying stages of mobility and activity. Some
are lively and socially engaged while others are falling
asleep in their chairs, waiting for someone to move
them. Some are attached to oxygen tanks, using walkers, or are in wheelchairs. Regardless of their capabilities, many in these facilities live independently in their
own apartments with some degree of care assistance.
It's a picture of a rapidly aging population, not unlike
most places around the world. According to the World
Health Organization, due to declining fertility rates and
increasing life expectancies, the proportion of those
over 60 will reach 22% of the world population by 2050,
which is almost double the current proportion [1]. Aside
from expected conditions that come with aging such as
hearing loss, and reduced mobility, more elderly men
and women will also have complex medical needs
requiring specialized care for such conditions as
dementia and Alzheimer's disease [1].
The groups I meet with for my audience reception
study epitomize healthy aging. They are socially active
and engaged, and eager to discuss new technologies
and old values. Audience reception is a particularly useful technique for harvesting feelings, opinions, and attitudes towards a subject that otherwise might not be

60

1932-4529/17©2017IEEE

©istock photo.com

Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MTS.2017.2696599
Date of publication: 8 June 2017

Kimberley Trynacity

IEEE Technology and Society Magazine

∕

june 2017



http://www.photo.com

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