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Hospital Robots
bluegreenone writes: "The Washington Post has an article about hospital robots. The most interesting part was hearing the robot's 'co-workers' describe their relationship with him." Only slightly scary.
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How is repacing the non-skilled labour with robots helping aleviate the shortage of skilled labour (nurses etc.) except by making more candidates available for training?
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"we live in a post-ideological world..." - Billy Bragg.
Well, it only took 50 years, but looks like the commercial world has finally found a practical application for AI. It would be interesting to find out if the robot is adaptable to its surroundings, or if it is just a command follower -- like the automatons that rove around assembly plants and such. It sounds like it has a fairly decent forward motion detection module and that its mobility module is integrated into that nicely as well. I wonder though if it is capable of maze transversal, and other classical AI applications.
May be worth keeping an eye on in the future...
Rule #1 -- Politics always trumps technology.
We have at least one of the Pyxis robots at the cancer research center where I work (names witheld to protect the innocent).
This one doesn't talk and doesn't directly interact with patients, has a significantly higher-pitched voice than James Earl Jones, and seems to be used primarily for carting supplies around the facility.
The best thing to do, besides set up a obstacle course of boxes in the hallway (fun stuff, that), is to watch the thing board the elevators. It's consistently able to trigger a stop at its floor, detect when the door opens, and bump over the gap into the elevator without getting stuck. Though it doesn't seem to like getting on an already occupied elevator, it's pretty trivial to sneak on once it's in the car. And I've never seen one get stuck. If I did, I'd probably never be able to laugh at anything else again in the same way.
At least where I am, though, I don't see these ever replacing direct patient care. Everyone loves to emphasize the human aspect of hospital treatment, especially the marketing department. Firing the nurse assistants and replacing them with robots, besides costing a hell of a lot more money, would probably piss everyone off.
Thus, the lower frequencies in the voice help insure that the robot's voice will be more likely to be heard by more people.
Whilst I probably agree with you about "over complicating" the solution to a problem in the hospital case cited, I find the idea of assisting the fraile or disabled tobe a very interesting role. The longer we can keep our aging populations in their existing homes the better we will be (both socially and economically).
My grandparents use(d) home help (provided by the state) to assist them on a daily basis as their eyesight and mobility failed. This probably saved between five and ten years in a special care home, time that was used by someone even more needy.
Many of the tasks performed might well be performed by some of the robots described in the article. The cost compared to home care, both in terms of economics and quality of life, are arguable (for some days the home visitor would be the only person they spoke to) but at least the issue is worth examining carefully.
"The first thing to do when you find yourself in a hole is stop digging."
Robert Heinlein's record at predictions never ceases to amaze me: not only did he decribe robots working in this way in a hospital, he also depicted a number of the problems and solutions that are talked about here. Check out "The Door Into Summer" to see what I mean.
It sounded to me like Tim was saying the relationship the co-workers have developed with the robot is scary, not the robot itself.