Who will take care of us: humans or robots?
The temporary demographic imbalance caused by the fall in the birth rate, combined with the more permanent increase in life expectancy, is leading to a pronounced aging of European populations. This is turning the provision of care to the elderly into a critical issue.
The role of machines (robots) in care is the subject of intense debate. Technology is beneficial if it complements human caregivers: it saves effort, monitors the person being cared for, and facilitates overall quality control. But robots can also replace caregivers, and then the benefit is not so clear. The person being cared for loses human contact, and the human loses their job.
The evolution of the human-robot mix will depend on three economic factors: the intensity of care recipients' desire to receive it from humans, the cost of providing the service with different combinations of humans and robots, and the general level of economic prosperity. These factors interact in various ways. I describe two scenarios. Reality will be mixed, and one or the other may predominate to varying degrees on the timeline.
Scenario with limited prosperity. This is the current situation. The replacement of humans by machines is driven, through the market and public regulation (minimum wage, for example), by a phenomenon that is initially very positive: economic growth leads to wage growth, even for less-skilled workers. In contrast, the cost of servicing machines tends to fall, as the productivity increases they enable can be spectacular. The result is as expected: the replacement of people by machines, to a degree that depends on the cost differential and individual priorities—expressed individually or collectively—but which is in any case significant. The ratio of care workers to recipients decreases. The replacement process reinforces the trend. To manage a robotic environment, those responsible for care must be skilled workers and compensated accordingly. Therefore: fewer workers providing care, but better paid.
A note about humanoid robots. Robots are machines that must efficiently perform the assigned work. If this were the only thing they looked like, they wouldn't look human. For example, they would use wheels, even though evolution has denied them to humans. The technological race to create robots that walk, run, and sing like humans is strictly about technological display and competition. It's done because it's difficult to do, and thus the first thing that gains reputation, possibly monetizable. Another thing is that humans like the objects we interact with to have shapes that are friendly to us. Good object design—an industry with a long tradition in Catalonia—is important. Therefore, it's possible that robots may look more human than is technically necessary. That said, I express a concern: the replacement of humans with robots will inevitably include digital assistants (like Siri, Alexia, etc.). Extreme humanization of these assistants isn't necessary either, and in this case, it could be dangerous. They must speak like a person, but they shouldn't pretend to be something they're not by doing it perfectly.
Scenario with abundant and sustainable prosperity. If, as should be the case, the factor of economic prosperity implies a significant and sustained increase in people's real income, they will have more resources that, if they wish, they can dedicate to supporting care with a generous direct presence of well-paid human providers. A source of employment that would be very good in a world where automation underlies the productivity increases that make prosperity possible, but which is also a cause of job losses. The question, then, is: as our income increases, will humans dedicate—via market or political means—proportionately more resources to care with a significant presence of human caregivers? I am convinced, or perhaps just hopeful, that this will be the case. Human nature is essentially social, and I believe that in a state of prosperity, we will dedicate resources to ensuring the social component of care.
Now, prosperity doesn't fall from the sky. Either we fully embrace a (green) growth policy, or older people will have to rely on robots beyond the point where they can enhance human labor. They will have to do so to replace labor, a loss in terms of human contact. Cared for, but alone.
