Machine autonomy for rehabilitation of elderly people: A trade-off between machine intelligence and consumer trust

This is an exploratory study with the objective to understand elderly people's expected behavior to accept and use machine autonomy controlled by ambient intelligence. It was conducted on a proposed theoretical framework, the expected trust model for machine autonomy (ETM4MA). A detailed survey was collected among elderly people living at home with their family members in a developing country, Bangladesh. Based on the results obtained from structural equation modeling (SEM) on the sample, it was observed that elderly people's acceptance of automation systems driven by ambient intelligence as a substitute for caregiving support directly from human beings was linked to their concerns about emotional belongingness and social interaction as well as their ability to use the technology. Thus, in developing trust in this machine autonomy, their expectations around personal ability and the feeling of caring are two important issues for elderly people. To form the behavioral intention to accept this machine autonomy, trust plays a crucial role; however, this might vary depending on the differences in personality and behavioral attitude.