Ageing Societies meets the Socio-gerontechnology Network

[English Version below]

Siamo lieti di annunciare che il Dott. Daniele Zaccaria (Scuola Universitaria Professionale della Svizzera Italiana), membro fondatore di Ageing Societies, è diventato membro del Communication commitee del Socio-gerontechnology Network.

Il Socio-gerontechnology Network è una rete che unisce ricercatori/trici e studios* di varie discipline, interessati ai temi dell’invecchiamento e della tecnologia. Il network nasce nel 2010 per studiare l’invecchiamento della popolazione in relazione alla digitalizzazione della società con lo scopo di aiutare nella formulazione di nuove politiche che sappiano guidare gli anziani in una società che si digitalizza.

Ogni anno il gruppo si riunisce per la conferenza annuale. Quest’anno l’incontro si terrà il 28-29 settembre alla Open University of The Netherlands. Il tema del workshop sarà: Theorising Ageing in a Digital World.

In tale occasione la Dott.ssa Emma Garavaglia (Politecnico di Milano) insieme al collega Prof. Alessandro Caliandro (Università di Pavia) e alla collega Dott.ssa Alessandra Gaia (Università di Milano-Bicocca) presenteranno due articoli di cui riportiamo qui gli abstract.

Sarà interessante condividere con voi quanto emergerà da questa iniziativa.

Older adults’ knowledge, awareness, and opinions on practices of data extraction and exploitation by digital platforms. A case study on Italy. (Emma Garavaglia, Alessandro Caliandro, Alessandra Gaia)

The economic logic dominating contemporary western societies is based on the unilateral extraction of huge amounts of data from citizens – who are constantly connected to the internet through a multiplicity of digital devices. Digital platforms – which are the very protagonists of such a form of socio-technical organization that Zuboff defines surveillance capitalism – use these data for a variety of scopes, such as perfecting algorithms, investing in the development of artificial intelligence, selling targeted advertising spaces etc.. In other words, data extracted from citizens is the primary source of profit for digital platforms. Despite the pervasiveness of data extraction and exploitation practices, the logics behind them are often obscure. Recently, the phenomenon of surveillance capitalism has been explored from a variety of perspectives. Nevertheless, issues related to the degree of awareness of citizens about the extraction and exploitation of digital data by platforms, and their opinion about this are still scarcely explored – especially in the Italian context.

Our work focuses on older adults (+65) living in Italy, and it aims at exploring: i. the degree of knowledge and awareness of older adults about how and to which aims digital data are exploited and the economic value they produce; ii. Their attitudes and opinions towards processes of digital data exploitation for business and non-business purposes; iii. Their degree of trust in actors that manage platforms extracting digital data; iv. Their rational and emotional reactions while exposed to dynamics of digital data extraction and exploitation. In order to address our research aims we use primary data collected within the survey Citizens and Value of Digital Data, conducted in 2022.

Older technology users attribute certain meanings to the use of digital media and contribute to the construction of specific digital cultures. Exploring their attitudes towards digital data extraction and exploitation is a key step towards the construction of a more balanced relation between older citizens and surveillance capitalism processes, but also to bring older technology users at the core of debates from which they are often excluded (precisely because of age-related stereotypes).

Chatting with Artificial Intelligence about ageing: exploring the ageing discourse emerging from human-machine interaction. (Alessandro Caliandro, Emma Garavaglia, Francesco Diodati, Alessandra Gaia)

Mühlhoff (2020) identifies two kinds of Artificial Intelligence (AI): simulative AI (where the intelligence is located within the machine and meant to enhance the social – e.g., caring robots) and cybernetic AI (where the intelligence is located outside the machine and extracted from the social – e.g., ChatGPT). While simulative AI has been largely explored by ageing studies, especially regarding its applications in healthcare services addressed to older adults, studies on cybernetic AI and ageing are still scarce.

The present contribution aims at exploring the role of AI in producing and circulating discourses on ageing, and more specifically on old age identities. Drawing on Human–Machine Communication’s theory (Guzman & Lewis, 2020), we explore the relational dimension of AI, intended as a process in which humans and machines collaborate in producing meanings. To do so, we develop an innovative study in which we use AI as both an object and method of research. Specifically, we asked 10 volunteers to engage in conversations with ChatGPT (an artificial intelligence chatbot owned by Microsoft), about ageing-related ‘hot’ topics, such as active ageing, old age public expenditure, social inclusion in old age etc. We analysed the conversational outputs employing a mix of narrative and automated text analysis.

We know a lot about how digital technologies (e.g., social media, big data, platforms) mediate and structure discourses on ageing, but the role of AI is rarely debated in this regard. Knowing that AI is not a technology mediating communication, but doing communication, with this study we contribute to kick-start a discussion around its role in the production of social knowledge on old age and ageing processes. Moreover, the study contributes to the discussion around the implications of the use of AI applications both as a source of data and a research method in ageing studies.

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English version

Socio-gerontechnology Network

We are thrilled to announce that Dr. Daniele Zaccaria (University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland), founding member of Ageing Societies, joined the Communication committee of the Socio-gerontechnology Network.

The Socio-gerontechnology Network brings together researchers and scholars from different disciplines who are interested in ageing and technology. The network was established in 2010, its aim is to study population ageing in relationship with the process of digitisation. The final goal is to help design new policies to support older people in an increasingly digital society.

Every year, the group comes together on occasion of the annual meeting. This year the event will be held on September 28th-29th at the Open University of The Netherlands, in Utrecht. The title of the workshop is: Theorising Ageing in a Digital World.

On those dates Dr. Emma Garavaglia (Politecnico of Milan), Prof. Alessandro Caliandro (University of Pavia) and Dr. Alessandra Gaia (University of Milan-Bicocca) will be there to present two articles; you’ll find the abstracts below.

We look forward to sharing with you the outcomes of this interesting initiative.