Abstract
This article explores views about older people and aging underpinning practices and perceptions of development and implementation of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in long-term care homes (LTC). Drawing on semi-structured interviews with seven AI developers, seven LTC staff, and four LTC advocates, we analyzed how AI technologies for later life are imagined, designed, deployed, and resisted. Using the concepts of “promissory discourse” and “aging anxieties”, we investigated manifestations of ageism in accounts of AI applications in LTC. Despite positive intentions, both AI developers and LTC staff/advocates engaged in simplistic scripts about aging, care, and the technological capacity of older people. We further uncovered what we termed sociotechnical ageism—a form that is not merely digital but rests on interacting pre-conceptions about the inability or lack of interest of older people to use emerging technologies coupled with social assumptions about aging, LTC, and technological innovation.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 1274-1282 |
| Number of pages | 9 |
| Journal | Journal of Applied Gerontology |
| Volume | 42 |
| Issue number | 6 |
| Early online date | 17 Feb 2023 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Jun 2023 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© The Author(s) 2023.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by a Monash Data Futures Institute grant awarded to the project’s team (Seed grant) and by a Faculty of Arts grant (Carers Grant 2022) awarded to the first author.
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| Faculty of Arts | 2022 |
| Monash Data Futures Institute |
Keywords
- ageism
- algorithmic bias
- digital ageism
- nursing homes
- older people
- techno-solutionism
- technology