Relational vulnerability and technological mediation: The ethics of intelligent eldercare

In current China, the 9073 elderly care system is accelerating the process of intelligentization. The fundamental tension between conventional filial piety ethics and technological rationality is evident in the numerous ethical debates triggered by intelligent older people’s care services, despite their convenience. This study proposes an analytical paradigm called relational vulnerability, which creatively combines the philosophy of technology with Confucian relational ethics. Through the use of intricate mechanisms, this framework seeks to shed light on how technological mediation alters intergenerational ethics. According to research, intelligent services that improve physical care for older people while weakening emotional ties have a paradoxical effect that creates new kinds of alienation, such as the measurement of filial duty and the breakdown of ritual-embodied behaviors. By incorporating cultural calibration into the development of human-machine symbiosis, this study addresses this issue by proposing the design concepts of “differential regulation” and “embodiment retention.” This counteracts the interpretive shortcomings of the Western autonomy-based ethical paradigm in the context of Chinese older people care, creating new avenues for the application of Confucian bioethics in the age of technology and offering fresh perspectives on moral dilemmas in intelligent older people care.