He cannot leave the house by himself because he does not know that cars may kill him and, in winter, he forgets to wear enough clothes to stay warm. He was born with Down's syndrome and Ingrid says that "he's calm and shy and really polite, but he needs help with everything". Ingrid is one of millions of people caring for a loved one at home today. In the UK, "family caregivers" constitute about 9% of the population and they outstrip paid care workers by more than three to one. This is because most care continues to be carried out in people's homes, rather than in residential facilities or by paid workers in the community. According to an annual survey of family caregivers in the UK, 45% had been providing support for 90 hours or more each week, and a similar proportion had not taken a break from caring in the past year.

If you Google "care bots", you'll see an army of robot butlers and nurses, taking vital signs in hospitals, handing red roses to patients, serving juice to the elderly. For the most part these are just sci-fi fantasies. The care bots that already exist come in a different guise. These care bots look less like robots and more like invisible pieces of code, webcams and algorithms. They can control who gets what test at the doctor's office or how many care hours are received by a person on Medicaid. Increasingly, human caregivers work through and alongside automated systems that set forth recommendations, manage and surveil their labor, and allocate resources.