Robot Caregiver or Robot-Supported Caregiving?

Much has been written—not least in this journal—about the potential, the benefits, and the risks of social robotics. Our paper is based on the social constructivist perspective that what a technology actually is can be decided only when it is applied. Using as an exemplar the robot baby seal PARO, which is deployed in Germany mainly as activation therapy for elderly people with dementia, we begin by briefly explaining why it is by no means clear at the beginning of the development phase what a technology is actually going to be. Rather, this is established in the light of, and in coordination with, the context of application. We then present some preliminary results from our ongoing study of the way in which this social robot is applied by professional care workers in a nursing home for the elderly. The underlying theoretical assumption on which our study is based is that the appearance and the performative deployment of a technical artifact are interdependent. Only in combination with experiences—the experiences of others, imparted in diverse forms as knowledge, and first-hand experience of using the technology—are the design and the technical functionality of the device of relevance to its appearance, that is, to what it is regarded as being. Our video-assisted ethnographic study of persons with dementia shows that, on the one hand, PARO is deployed performatively as an occasion for communication and as an interlocutor, and, on the other, it is applied as an observation instrument.