There has been a surge in the number and type of AI tools being tested and deployed within both national and local government in the UK, including within the social care sector. Given the many ongoing and planned future developments, the time is ripe to review and reflect on the state of AI in social care. We do so by conducting semi-structured interviews with UK-based social work professionals about their experiences and opinions of past and current AI systems. Our aim is to understand what systems would practitioners like to see developed and how. We find that all our interviewees had overwhelmingly negative past experiences of technology in social care, unanimous aversion to algorithmic decision systems in particular, but also strong interest in AI applications that could allow them to spend less time on administrative tasks. In response to our findings, we offer a series of concrete recommendations, which include commitment to participatory design, as well as the necessity of regaining practitioner trust.

Artificial intelligence is to be used to check if carers are likely to quit their jobs. Any issues employees have had with pay, punctuality, or problems with their manager will be among the data fed into the algorithm. The technology is meant to combat the staffing crisis in social care by giving bosses an early chance to persuade workers to stay. Private healthcare company Cera claims its AI could prevent around 50,000 staff leaving every year. The firm said it has been shown to detect carers who are at risk of quitting three times more accurately than human managers can.