Autonomy for Older Adult-Agent Interaction

TL;DR

This paper explores how AI agents can support older adults by aligning with their autonomy preferences across decision-making, goals, control, and social responsibility, proposing research directions for ethical and operational autonomy measures.

Contribution

It introduces a multidimensional framework of autonomy for older adults and outlines future research directions to operationalize and measure agent autonomy.

Findings

Identifies four key dimensions of autonomy for older adults.

Highlights the importance of social responsibility in agent autonomy.

Proposes research directions for autonomy measurement and operationalization.

Abstract

As the global population ages, artificial intelligence (AI)-powered agents have emerged as potential tools to support older adults' caregiving. Prior research has explored agent autonomy by identifying key interaction stages in task processes and defining the agent's role at each stage. However, ensuring that agents align with older adults' autonomy preferences remains a critical challenge. Drawing on interdisciplinary conceptualizations of autonomy, this paper examines four key dimensions of autonomy for older adults: decision-making autonomy, goal-oriented autonomy, control autonomy, and social responsibility autonomy. This paper then proposes the following research directions: (1) Addressing social responsibility autonomy, which concerns the ethical and social implications of agent use in communal settings; (2) Operationalizing agent autonomy from the task perspective; and (3) Developing autonomy measures.