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Love in the age of robots: a video interview with Sander Burger

Sander Burger’s film Alice Cares (2015) delves into the lives of three elderly women who participate in a pilot study with a ‘care-droid’, called Alice. From the Open City Documentary Festival.

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In 2024, the population of 80-year-olds in the Netherlands will quadruple. More than three-quarters of them will need some kind of care. The trend is a global one.

Developed by Dutch scientists, Alice is 60cm tall and combines a characteristically human face with a robotic body. The film explores her ability to attentively converse and interact with the women.

Through the eyes of Alice, the audience is given an insight into the lived experiences of elderly women and their approach to loneliness, mobility and care.

Burger’s earlier work deals with the increasingly important impact that technology has on the human condition.  

openDemocracy Author

Donato Paolo Mancini

Donato is a London-based journalist with a background in social anthropology and economics. His work has appeared in The Times, The Guardian, The New York Times, Al Jazeera, VICE, and other publications. He tweets @donatopmancini.

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openDemocracy Author

Dea Gjinovci

Dea Gjinovci is a SOAS alumna and recently graduated from UCL with a Master Ethnographic and Documentary film. She is now based in Paris and pursuing a research master in social anthropology at l’Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS). She tweets @dea_gj.

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