Chapter title: AI in care: a solution to the ‘care crisis’ in England?
Written by Professor Kate Hamblin, Dr James Wright and Dr Grace Whitfield.
This chapter is included in the Handbook on Public Policy and Artificial Intelligence.
In this chapter, we focus on AI in the context of long term care provision in England. AI technologies – such as care robotics and data software – are often positioned by the UK Government (and governments elsewhere) as a ‘solution’ to high levels of unmet care needs and poor working conditions and pay in the sector. Critiquing this position, we analyse: how AI technologies are funded and implemented in care contexts; how neoliberal New Public Management discourses underlie the connection between AI and efficiency; and how these discourses omit to consider ethics and production processes behind technologies. Overall, we question whether AI can and should make care provision more efficient, and emphasise the neglect of labour enabling and facilitating use of technology. While we make the latter point in relation to care, it is also a consideration in policy ‘fetishisation’ of technology more broadly.
Available to read here (Open Access):
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4687695
Handbook on Public Policy and Artificial Intelligence. Publication Date: 2024 ISBN: 978 1 80392 216 4