Are These Robots Taking Away Jobs in the Elder Care System?

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The idea is that these robots are going to replace some of the need for human labor in the elder care system. But what you're seeing in your work is that that's probably not the case, right? You know, while they might not be taking away jobs, they are still acting in a way to kind of de-skill and devalue some of these labor. The devaluation comes in with the fact thatThese robots are really expensive. So if we're saying that the robots can't really replace care labor, but they can de-skill it, it implies that if you have a limited pot of money for your care system, and you're going to scale up the use of

Paris Marx is joined by James Wright to discuss Japan’s efforts to develop robots to care for its growing elderly population, what the government hoped to achieve with that plan, and why it hasn’t worked out as planned.

James Wright is a research associate with Turning Institute and a visiting lecturer at Queen Mary University of London. He’s also the author of Robots Won’t Save Japan. You can follow James on Twitter at @jms_wright.

Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Follow the podcast (@techwontsaveus) and host Paris Marx (@parismarx) on Twitter, and support the show on Patreon.

The podcast is produced by Eric Wickham and part of the Harbinger Media Network.

Also mentioned in this episode:

Paris is visiting New Zealand and doing a number of events through the latter half of March. Find all the dates and details here.
James wrote about Japan’s efforts to automate elder care for MIT Tech Review.
Jennifer Robertson spoke about the gendering of robots to cement conservative gender norms.

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