Can 'Robots Won't Save Japan' Save Robotics? Reviewing an Ethnography of Eldercare Automation

Abstract

Imagine activating new robots meant to aid staff in an elder care facility, only to discover the robots are counterproductive. They undermine the most meaningful moments of the jobs and increase staff workloads, because robots demand care too. Eventually, they're returned. This vignette captures key elements of James Adrian Wright's ethnography, "Robots Won't Save Japan", an essential resource for understanding the state of elder care robotics. Wright's rich ethnographic interviews and observations challenge the prevailing funding, research, and development paradigms for robotics. Elder care residents tend to be Disabled, so this review article augments Wrights' insights with overlooked perspectives from Disability and Robotics research. This article highlights how care recipients' portrayal suggests that Paro, a plush robot seal, might perform better than the care team and author indicated -- leading to insights that support urgent paradigm shifts in elder care, ethnographic studies, and robotics. It presents some of the stronger technical status quo counter-arguments to the book's core narratives, then confronts their own assumptions. Furthermore, it explores exceptional cases where Japanese and international roboticists attend to care workers and recipients, justifying key arguments in Wright's compelling book. Finally, it addresses how "Robots won't save Japan" will save Robotics.