Emerging Technologies Research Lab, Department of Human-Centred Computing, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia.
J Aging Stud. 2024 Sep;70:101248. doi: 10.1016/j.jaging.2024.101248. Epub 2024 Jul 16.
The negative portrayal of ageing as a human decline burdening society has prompted Ageing Technology industries (AgeTech) to foresee solutions rooted in the Ageing in Place paradigm. These ostensibly neutral future interventions are intertwined with socio-technical dynamics. While Science and Technology Studies (STS) and anthropology scholars have questioned these AgeTech practices, limited literature explores industry's predictions of future AgeTech. Drawing on STS and futures-anthropology literature, I interrogate AgeTech industry visions of future assemblages involving older people, smart home technology, and socio-material discourses rooted in their own discrepancies and dilemmas. To unpack AgeTech futures, my methods include a review of 49 industry reports and 29 interviews with industry experts. Based on the reports, I designed comics to be used in interviews with experts spanning CEOs and managers of companies designing technology for older people, consultants, and aged-care workers based in 12 countries. Ageing futures are far from being neutral or a chronological process, instead they are non-consensual and fragmented. In the review and interviews, I captured future assemblages of a fragmented AgeTech industry in relationships with governments and industry giants. The fragmentation continues unfolding in participants from diverse countries and professions contesting dominant AgeTech narratives. In dissecting future assemblages, I also unpack non-consensual futures based on diverging experts' values (e.g. safety versus activity) and humans' values like control and improvisation challenging predictive and surveillance technology. AgeTech Futures transcend physical matters or assemblages of technologies and humans. They encompass future normativities, tensions, divergent values, and ideological concepts. I propose not only alternatives to the visions found in industry narratives, but also encourage scholars to understand the AgeTech industry's dilemmas.
将衰老描绘成一种给社会带来负担的人类衰退，这种负面形象促使老年技术产业（AgeTech）预见到基于就地老龄化范式的解决方案。这些表面上中立的未来干预措施与社会技术动态交织在一起。尽管科学技术研究（STS）和人类学学者对这些 AgeTech 实践提出了质疑，但关于行业对未来 AgeTech 的预测的文献却很少。借鉴 STS 和未来人类学的文献，我探讨了 AgeTech 行业对未来涉及老年人、智能家居技术和基于自身差异和困境的社会物质话语的组合体的设想。为了解开 AgeTech 的未来，我的方法包括对 49 份行业报告和 29 份行业专家访谈的回顾。基于这些报告，我设计了漫画，用于对来自 12 个国家的为老年人设计技术的公司的首席执行官和经理、顾问以及老年护理工作者的专家进行访谈。老龄化的未来远非中立或按时间顺序的过程，而是不一致和碎片化的。在审查和访谈中，我捕捉到了与政府和行业巨头关系中的碎片化 AgeTech 产业的未来组合体。这种碎片化在来自不同国家和职业的参与者中继续展开，他们对主导的 AgeTech 叙事提出质疑。在剖析未来组合体时，我还根据不同专家的价值观（例如安全与活动）和人类的价值观（如控制和即兴创作），剖析了非一致的未来，这些价值观挑战了预测和监控技术。AgeTech 未来超越了物质问题或技术和人类的组合体。它们包含未来的规范性、紧张关系、不同的价值观和意识形态概念。我不仅提出了替代行业叙事中发现的愿景的方案，还鼓励学者们理解 AgeTech 行业的困境。
