Description
The number of older adults living independently at home is expanding, which is often said to bring the need for more technological assistance. Dutch policy aims to allow older adults to remain living at home as long as possible and use technologies to support in performing daily practices. Artificial Intelligence (AI), as part of these technologies, has the potential to improve personalized care and ageing in place. Interest in eXplainable AI (XAI) originated from the recognition that AI infrastructures often operate in an opaque, “black-boxed” way. XAI should assist users in understanding the underlying logic of the decision-making process, and identifying biases and mistakes.In the care of older adults, trust and willingness to use AI seem essential for responsible sectoral embedding, but the needed level of explainability differs according to different stakeholders. Our earlier research showed that the meaning and necessity of XAI in long-term care had similarities and differences between the three defined context. In the perspective of company employees, XAI is necessary because those who make the decisions need to understand how the decision was formed by the AI system. The explanations should not focus on technicalities or the actual algorithm, but the explanations need to be close to the ‘world’ of the decision-makers and mainly including information about the data on which the decision was based. According to management stakeholders, acceptance will follow after experiencing the AI in practice and have some form of practical explainability to know when the AI system is trustworthy and how to use it. Last, care professionals see a need for explanations in order to provide personalized care and communicate with clients. In their vision a layered XAI model is required with explanations on practical, data specific or even algorithmic level, to suit different skills and knowledge of the users.
As a follow-up, we conducted 28 interviews to investigate ‘what XAI is’ in the worlds of older adults. What do they know about AI and how do they experience and imagine our society with AI? What is XAI and how do they value explainability? Preliminary findings show that knowledge on AI varies among the population, mainly based on the news, and most do not want to use it. However, there are some who show and interest and see a positive future of AI. Overall, current knowledge on AI or XAI is low and the older adults expressed different needs towards explainability. Sometimes it is not valuable to know more about the ‘inside’ of an AI-system. Also, XAI is different from the current technological discourse because XAI is not only technological, but a constellation between human and machine. Although XAI seems interesting, most argue that having a human-in-the-loop and a joint decision-making is more important. As a follow-up, we recommend research into the enactment of XAI in real-life practices with AI, and investigate the form or degree of XAI needed and for whom.
| Period | 20 Feb 2025 |
|---|---|
| Event title | Ageing in the digital era. An Interdisciplinary Debate on ICTs and Social Inclusion for Older Adults |
| Event type | Conference |
| Location | Milan, ItalyShow on map |
| Degree of Recognition | International |
Sectorplan keywords OU
- CW Humane artificial intelligence (sectorplan)