Paternalistic AI: the case of aged care

In this paper, we argue that AI systems for aged care can be paternalistic towards older adults. We start by showing how implicit age biases get embedded in AI technologies, either through designers’ ideologies and beliefs or in the data processed by AI systems. Thereafter, we argue that ageism oftentimes leads to paternalism towards older adults. We introduce the concept of technological paternalism and illustrate how it works in practice, by looking at AI for aged care. We end by analyzing the justifications for paternalism in the care of older adults to show that the imposition of paternalistic AI technologies to promote the overall good of older adults is not justified.