Relying on robots to care for us: Anna Romina Guevarra on the consequences of automating the work of caregivers

Thanks to rapid advances in artificial intelligence, what used to be sci-fi fantasy is now reality: robots can now teach, provide therapy, and administer care in hospitals and other medical facilities. But as Anna Romina Guevarra, associate professor and director of Global Asian Studies at University of Illinois Chicago, asks, should they? In her August 2, 2021 essay in Boston Review, Guevarra explores issues of labor and bias to determine the “potential harm of automating care work.”

Anna Romina Guevarra, "Here Come the Robot Nurses," Boston Review, 2 August 2021.

 

1. Guevarra’s essay responds to an increase in the production and purchase of professional service robots that work in hospitals and elder care settings. What are the benefits of these robots, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic? What groups of people typically do this caregiving work in US society? How is their labor compensated or valued?
   
2. Guevarra, in conversation with other scholars and activists, argues that assumptions about race and gender “get coded into the design” of service robots that do caregiving work. Pick one of the specific service robots that Guevarra describes in depth: Grace, EngKey, or Erica. What is this robot designed to do? Who does it serve? What assumptions about race and gender are apparent in how this robot is designed and how it functions?
3. Throughout her essay, Guevarra relies on quotes and summaries to bring in and respond to the ideas of others. Choose one paragraph in her essay where she introduces a quote or a short summary. Explain where in that paragraph you see her using voice markers to distinguish her ideas from the ideas of others. How effective are these markers for clarifying who is saying what? If you think the voice-marking devices should be clearer, revise the paragraph using the strategies explained in Chapter 5.
4. Guevarra poses this central question: Should we use robots as caregivers? What do you think? Should there be limits on the kind of caregiving work robots do? If so, what should those limits be, and why? What should engineers and programmers do to ensure that robots and other forms of AI technology can provide equitable care?

Comments

[Iva]

Hello, It looks' to me that we are going to have a very interesting class.

[Robert R Freshour]

I believe Robots can't solve everything.

[Shahnaz Mr Gupta]

I totally agree with Robert's statement that robots cannot solve everything. Robots are another man made machines which operates based upon commands by humans.

[Noah]

This is an interesting topic to think about. While robots can help in the medical field quite a bit, I think they should not be caring for people on their own. I agree with the article on that. The author says, "In the short term, there is no question that while robots may provide some support to human workers and help minimize their exposure to unsafe conditions, they cannot replace their human counterparts.". In the future robots may be able to care for people fully, however I think people should continue to take care of people.

[Jer'miah Cooper]

. I personally agree with Guevarra, having artificial intelligence in the medical field is not terrible although it can present many complications. It is very hard to replace human connections with robots and expect it to be the best alternative. This is just another situation where jobs can be reduced and taken people who worked so to care for others. I again agree with the author there are too many situational events that can happen in the case of having robots in the medical field.

[Colby]

I totally agree that robots could us in the medical field and many other fields as well.
There are many things they could do that would help keep humans safe and possible
perform better than us humans. I do not think we should rely entirely on them to do
certain things. There are many problems that could present themselves without a
human being present to mediate.

[Jane Porcheddu]

In her article she appropriately states her position. I believe that she is most for the advancement of robotics in care but through carefully calculated measures which are laid out in ana organized manor through out the article.

[Hina - Ariana]

I agree with previous comments, specifically Noah who stated, "I think they should not be caring for people on their own." Although robots are very capable and their abilities are on the rise, they aren't at human level yet. As the author mentions, "Robots can function very well in factories and warehouses because assembly-line work provides a uniform environment; in homes and health care facilities, such uniformity is more difficult to achieve." Medical attention requires attentive understanding and no two people are the same or respond the same. New things are always coming out and robots are not at the level of understanding that input. This could potentially put more lives at risk then saving them.

[...]

Are robots in the medical field practical? After reading this blog, I agree that robots are practical in the medical field. The blog “Relying on robots to care for us” states, “robots do caregiving work.” Although the sale of robots has increased over the past few years, the article states that “In the short term, there is no question that while robots may provide some support to human workers and help minimize their exposure to unsafe conditions, they cannot replace their human counterparts.” This quote proves that although robots may be useful and more practical in the future; The current state of the technology of the technical robots is in no way, shape or form as efficient as humans. As robots will provide assistance to humans when caregiving, they will not fully be able to replace human connections with robots. These robots do not compare to humans' critical thinking skills with difficult medical applications like surgery, whereas they can be more applicable doing simple tasks like giving shots.

[Sean]

Robots are exciting creations that have come a very long way, but I don't believe they can do everything in our daily lives for us. Robots will always need a way to turn on and off. They also will never be able to function emotionally like a human does. Robots do not compare, or at least right now.

[Alexandra S.]

I agree with all the previous comments, robots such as “Grace” can help provide healthcare workers some support and help minimize their exposure to unsafe conditions in the medical fields, but we should not let them care for people on their own. As mentioned in the article, “AI facial recognition systems are notoriously bad, for example, at interpreting the emotional responses of people with darker skin tones. Some can’t perceive the faces of people with darker skin at all, let alone understand their expressions.” This would put women of color at a much higher risk than white people. These risks would include the risk from AI facial recognition and the risks brought by racial bias in health insurers’ algorithm. No two patients are equal in healthcare. Medics are still discovering new ways in how our bodies react to certain procedures and medications, so how would it be possible to program a robot on how to react to unknown outcomes? Many healthcare workers who are people of color often lack a living wage, workplace safety, paid sick and family leave, and adequate health care. With the potential employment of these robots, many of these essential workers will lose their jobs.

[AA]

I agree with Guevarra on multiple aspects of her writing. Robots entering the medical field is an entire ethical debacle. Robots must tackle problems such as emotional awareness, suiting unique patient needs, and running for extended periods of time. Emotional awareness was tackled simultaneously with racial and gender biasing which I personally did not understand completely. I agree that racial bias and gender bias may play a role in robot-patient interaction; but why diverge so heavily from the topic to discuss racial bias at such length? Moreover, the utilization of these robots can vary. Robots do not necessarily have to replace human healthcare workers entirely; they can coexist and handle tasks side-by-side, sustaining an efficient workflow and providing proper care to patients. Furthermore, in tandem with my previous statement, I agree with Guevarra who concludes that, “Thus, the idea is not to simply replace human workers with a more efficient technology but to develop a workplace where robots and human workers can truly coexist.”

[Chloe48]

I think there are pros and cons to ai's entry into the medical field. On the plus side, AI can not only dramatically reduce the workload of doctors and nurses, but it can also prioritize emergencies, automatically analyze patient data, and even interface graphically. Secondly, the AI surgical assistance system can provide doctors with a clearer perspective, enabling them to perform precise and fast operations with less harm to patients. In addition to that, I believe that aging is a trend in many developed countries, and this will inevitably lead to higher and higher labor costs in the future. Furthermore, today, more and more young people are choosing to be dinky, which inevitably puts society under tremendous pressure to retire in the future. So, I think the Development and Popularization of AI will be a very good thing for a society with an aging population. When the time comes, people will be able to live at home and enjoy the life mode of a nursing home. However, there is bound to be a bad side to AI when it benefits humans, such as Patient privacy. When AI relies on big data to work, it can easily result in patient privacy and data leakage. As for the problem of robots not recognizing people of color mentioned by the author. This reminds me of a recent episode of a TV show called Better Off Ted (the episode is called "Racial Sensitivity"), the Company Veridian Dynamics decides to save money by installing sensors at its headquarters that turn off the power whenever no one is in the room, except for a glitch in the system that prevents it from recognizing dark-skinned people. When the show's protagonist Ted Crisp (Jay Harrington) suggests that the sensors are racist, his boss Veronic (Portia De Rossi) explains that the system isn't targeting black people, it just ignores them. Back to the application of ai in the medical field, I believe that with the continuous development of computer science, this problem will eventually be solved.

[XinGuo]

I agree with the author. It is not practical to use robots for medical work. I think there's a lot of change in health care. Robots can't improvise. I think robots can only do some simple jobs. It is always a machine without a thought.

[Ade]

I agree with Gueverra on the risks of allowing robots as caregivers. Robots are very fast and precise to complete certain tasks like factory work, but I believe that they are not the right alternative for certain jobs that require care and comfort. As stated in the article the kids were not able to connect with the robotic teacher because of the way they reacted in which they spoke “with a profound sense of dissociation” and the way they looked in which a robot that was supposed to be a Latino teacher looked a lot like a white woman, which shows lack of diversity.
My second reason was that robots are coded machines and no matter how many codes an individual puts in a robot, they can not emulate the same emotion, warmth, care, and understanding of a human being. There are different patients with different personalities and struggles and a robot may not be able to calm the patients down. Although the robots can still be able to work in the medical fields that require more practical work like changing the IV pole and checking the patient's temperature rather than human interaction.

[Allison Bauman]

I believe that the creation of robots has come a very long way, however there are some things we should not rely on robots for. I do not think it is practical to rely on robots to be our prime source of healthcare workers. During the COVID-19 pandemic there were robots that would assist in hospitals; these robots would help patients and, they would restock medical supplies and greet the guests. I feel that with the pandemic it was fine that these robots were assisting patients because of how many there were at that time. However, in the future, putting the pandemic aside, I think we should not rely on robots to work in the medical field. Robots will never function the same way humans do; Robots do not have the same critical thinking skills that us humans have. Putting a robot responsible for a human’s life could create so many issues that could potentially put that patient’s life at risk.

[Zain]

Recently, in today's generation, we can see that A.I has been changing the functions of daily human life. It has been taking over the responsibilities of people and does the work for them. However, technology has moved on to a new level of taking over the functions of people and workers. It has been shown that robots are taking over the jobs of workers, especially in hospitals. This may be considered an easier way of managing to get work done in these workplaces, but in hospitals I think people should assist other people. Instead, robots are taking the responsibilities of nurses, and are now assisting elderly people in most facilities and patients in hospitals. I believe that a robot can not stimulate the same emotional effects as humans do no matter what way they are programmed or coded. These robot nurses are programmed and coded to show emotional effects like being gentle and caring for the patients, but in reality human nurses should be taking action instead. I'm sure that a patient would only feel safer if a human would take care of them rather than a robot. On the other hand, this will only affect the unemployment rates because if robots are taking over the positions of people, then there will be more unemployed nurses which could perform better than robots. Since they are only robots that are designed, there could be obstacles that may occur within their way of functioning. If there is an issue with the way a robot is programmed, then it will cost more for maintaining them when that money can be used to pay the wages for nurses. Overall, robot nurses can be advantageous in some ways, but to certain extents