By Dr Nicos Karfakis*
In Japan and South Korea, the use of robots and Artificial Intelligence (AI) applications in healthcare and caregiving is no longer science fiction. Aging populations, low birth rates, and significant labour shortages have driven Japan in particular to seek technological solutions for a society where increasingly more people need care and proportionally fewer are available to provide it.
Robots are being used or developed for patient transfer, rehabilitation, elderly monitoring, and even companionship.
It would be easy to approach these developments with technophobia. However, as Núria Vallès-Peris and Miquel Domènech (2023) point out, technology is not the opposite of care. Care has always been linked to the use of technologies, from wheelchairs and hearing aids to telecare systems. A robot that helps a nurse lift or move a patient can significantly reduce physical strain and the risk of injury.
At the same time, AI systems can analyze data from sensors, detecting a fall or an unusual change in an elderly person’s daily activity and alerting caregivers in time. In this sense, automation can paradoxically lead to more rather than less human care, freeing up valuable time for communication, emotional support, and meaningful human contact.
In Japan and South Korea, the use of robots and Artificial Intelligence (AI) applications in healthcare and caregiving is no longer science fiction. Aging populations, low birth rates, and significant labour shortages have driven Japan in particular to seek technological solutions for a society where increasingly more people need care and proportionally fewer are available to provide it.
Robots are being used or developed for patient transfer, rehabilitation, elderly monitoring, and even companionship.
It would be easy to approach these developments with technophobia. However, as Núria Vallès-Peris and Miquel Domènech (2023) point out, technology is not the opposite of care. Care has always been linked to the use of technologies, from wheelchairs and hearing aids to telecare systems. A robot that helps a nurse lift or move a patient can significantly reduce physical strain and the risk of injury.
At the same time, AI systems can analyze data from sensors, detecting a fall or an unusual change in an elderly person’s daily activity and alerting caregivers in time. In this sense, automation can paradoxically lead to more rather than less human care, freeing up valuable time for communication, emotional support, and meaningful human contact.
The Care Crisis and Market Drivers
The discussion becomes more complex if, instead of simply asking what robots can do, we examine why there is such an intense need for care automation. As Mercer Gary (2021) points out, the development of care robots must be examined within the broader context of a “care crisis,” which is not merely demographic or technological, but connected to how modern societies organize and value care itself.
Care has historically been one of the most undervalued forms of work. Much of it is provided by women, often poorly paid or unpaid within the family, despite requiring skills, responsibility, patience, and significant emotional labor. This creates an interesting paradox: an activity that societies took for granted for decades acquires massive technological and investment interest once the possibility of automation arises.
Therefore, it is not enough to ask whether a robot can perform a specific task. We must examine who benefits from its automation. If technology reduces physical strain on workers and allows them to spend more time with the people they care for, it can genuinely improve the quality of care. If, conversely, it is primarily used to reduce staff and labor costs or to allow a worker to care for an increasing number of people, it may intensify the problems it is supposed to solve.
As Vallès-Peris and Domènech argue, the ethical debate on care robots cannot be limited to the functions that can be safely delegated to a machine, but must also examine how the market and technological innovation affect the very organization of care.
Redefining Care in a Technological Age
A deeper question remains: what do we actually mean when we talk about care? Moving an elderly person, reminding them to take medication, or recording a vital sign can largely be automated. However, care is not merely a sum of tasks. It involves recognizing fear and loneliness, trust, touch, and human presence. Modern social robots can converse, respond to human stimuli, and create a sense of companionship without experiencing interest, compassion, or emotional commitment.
Even here, easy answers are problematic. An elderly person may prefer the assistance of a machine in certain highly personal activities, thereby maintaining greater autonomy, privacy, and perhaps dignity. A social robot can also genuinely reduce the feeling of loneliness. On the other hand, the technological treatment of loneliness should not lead us to accept the social conditions that cause it as normal.
From this perspective, the real dilemma is not “human or robot?”, but what kind of care we want and who will benefit from its automation. AI and robots can free people from grueling and repetitive tasks, but they must not replace investment in the people who provide care. Ultimately, the important question is not only whether robots can learn to care, but whether the social and labour conditions we create allow people themselves to continue caring.
*Lecturer of Business Administration, Aegean College / University of Essex
