In Japan, Old People Talk to Robots

stupidfoo writes "AFP is reporting that, starting today, "Japan's growing elderly population will be able to buy companionship in the form of a 45-centimeter (18-inch) robot" designed to help them avoid senility. The robot, named Snuggling Ifbot and developed by Dream Supply, will be able to respond to verbal commands. "If a person tells Snuggling Ifbot, "I'm bored today," the robot might respond, "Are you bored? What do you want to do?"". It retails for 576,000 yen (5,600 dollars) and there is no English version currently available but "its makers plan to program the robot in English -- not for export, but to teach the language to Japanese children.""

Comments

rather than forcing it to use it's AI for conversa

[way2trivial]

tion, why not use the thing as a giant physical IM client? when you speak to it, have it relay whatever it hears to one of it's soon to be overlord cousins, kinda at random..

sure makes it easier to pass a turing test...

hahaha what a laugh if...

[tod_miller]

We hacked tham all to convince them they are mad, and to place all thier assets in our care!

Ooops, scarey thought, what if someone actually did this? Robo identities with an ulterior motive!

What if someone goes senile, and leaves all thier assets to the robot?

Come to think of it, why did I think this was funny... more like insightful!

*adjust ancient-korean tinfoil hat*

Great.

[CosmeticLobotamy]

"If a person tells Snuggling Ifbot, "I'm bored today," the robot might respond, "Are you bored? What do you want to do?"

Whew. Thanks, Ifbot. You solved that problem. I don't know what I would have done without you.

Re:Great.

[metlin]

Funny, after watching Ghost in the Shell: Innocence, am not too sure about what people would do with these kinda robots.

On one hand, it's sad that people need robots to talk to, rather than each other. On the other hand, this is eerily reminiscent of Solaria in Asimov's books.

Oh wait, wasn't Solaria itself modeled on the Emperor-ruled Japan? Looks like some cultural influences never leave, they merely come to haunt the people in different disguises.

Japans "CareBots"...

[DoktorTomoe]

Having done some research (I hold a masters degree in Japanese), I recall there was also a project that had some kid of one-button Instant Messenger in a teddy bear.

The Idea was that elders spoke to the teddy, who tried to convert their word to written language. This was transferred to a central station, where social workers read them on monitor, and replied (e.g. answering questions). The teddy-bot then "spoke the answer to the elder.

Dont know if this project still is in progress. However, an old lady mentioned that the positive impact of the robot was that so much researchers and journalists came to visit her these days...

What is the deal with the Japanese?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm no cultural anthropologist, but something must be seriously fucked up with a nation that produces millions of locked-away teenagers, unending streams of paedophilic tentacle rape comics and expensive robots to keep its elderly people sane. Say what you want about the bloated corpulence of USofAia, but I'd take physical problems over crippling psychological problems and abandonment of the elderly.

Re:What is the deal with the Japanese?

[Anonymous Coward]

As opposed to the U.S. where we lock away many teenagers for silly offences, have unending numbers of paedophilic people in authority (priests, celebrities, teachers), and abandon our elderly in nursing homes to forget themselves?

Quite frankly, it doesn't sound much different.

Re:What is the deal with the Japanese?

[Tore S B]

...unending streams of paedophilic tentacle rape comics...

There's a good reason for this. Japanese law (Written by USA, mind you) bans "indecent content", specifying pubic hair and the sexual organs in print. Thus, literature seems pedophilic because there are no pubes, making the chicks/boys appear younger. Also, the tentacles are that way because they, uhm, are phalluses. Wikipedia would elaborate for you, I won't. (This is all from memory anyways, vague ones)

and expensive robots to keep its elderly people sane.

Fuck, at least Japan is trying to do something about it, instead of letting the people who built the country from barely anything to an economic superpower rot in some retirement home alone, like a major country with some states that are united.

Re:What is the deal with the Japanese?

[Maestro4k]

• I'm no cultural anthropologist,

You're either seriously misinformed, too lazy to look up the real facts or just trolling actually. While Japan is certainly far from perfect, this is a totally unfair attack.

• but something must be seriously fucked up with a nation that produces millions of locked-away teenagers,

It's called Hikikomori so you can look up more info on it. Yes there are a million teens who have this problem, but there are many millions who don't. The problem isn't considered a disease (at least not yet), and the problems that trigger it are problems that occur elsewhere as well. From this site: "For reasons ranging from bullying to exam failure, some young people are shutting themselves away in their rooms and having as little direct contact with the outside world as possible. Many are suicidal, but lack the will to make good their morbid fantasies." From what I've read (in the past, can't find the exact links right now) it's a combination that generally causes it. It's not just bad grades or bullying, but a combination of those and/or other factors. Faced with that kind of pressure kids in any country are going to have trouble dealing with it. In fact, China and Korea have problems with high teen suicide rates (just like Japan) largely due to all three placing such importance on doing well on school. If China and Korea aren't seeing problems similiar to Hikikomori yet, they will in the future.

As for why the US doesn't, well kids here by and large don't give a damn if they do well in school so that's one less pressure to trigger something like this. But we do have bullying in schools, in spades in fact, and we have nothing to be proud of in the results it can cause, remember Columbine? What's sad is we didn't really learn anything from that tragedy, the initial response was to ban wearing black trenchcoats and to target teens with similar interests to the two instigators for further scrutiny. What needs to be done is to focus on the kids who are the bullys and punish them for bullying others. Until bullying, which is the root problem, is addressed other incidents like Columbine are likely to happen. I hope I'm wrong there, but I doubt it.

• unending streams of paedophilic tentacle rape comics

On please, you know absolutely nothing about manga. Yeah there is tentacle rape stuff, but it's just a drop in the sea. Japan produces comics for all ages, and they're quite popular. It's everywhere, and most of it is decidedly NOT pedophilic or tentacle rape. And of the stuff that is, as another pointed out it's not necessarily pedophilic, it's cultural issues that lead to the creation of it. (And BTW, the US has some blame in that, we're the ones who applied the first anti-obscenity laws to Japan post WWII.)

• and expensive robots to keep its elderly people sane.

At least they're trying to do something about the problem, exacly what are we doing here in the US? At best we're building more nursing homes to stuff the elderly into so we can forget them. Hardly a higher moral ground.

• Say what you want about the bloated corpulence of USofAia, but I'd take physical problems over crippling psychological problems and abandonment of the elderly.

What say you buck the general American trend of presuming you know everything about a country you've not even been to and stop acting all high and mighty when you're clueless. While Japan isn't perfect, neither is the US and in the grand scheme of things the US probably has more to be ashamed of. We also have our share of crippling psychological problems, you just don't appear to be aware of them either. (Do you even watch/read the news?) Depression is becoming epidemic and one of the top prescription drugs people get busted for having is Xanax. Xanax isn't a narcotic, it's an anti-anxiety medication.

And frankly when it comes t

Re:Depends what they're used for...

[Savage-Rabbit]

Yeah, and sooner or later the following headline would appear on theregister.com:

Robot wife gets stuck in endless programming loop, owner shagged to death.

Sad

[elgatozorbas]

Am I the only one to think it is sad old people should now revert to robots?
One hundred years ago, having children was an insurance for old age: if you had many, at least one of them would take care of you. At least, such was the situation in Europe (where I live), and I know this was especially the case in Asia too. Probably life was shorter back than, and the elderly weren't a 'burden' for a long time...

Nowadays, people live longer (or at least they can choose to, by living healthy... obesitas anyone?), and their offspring is busier. So I can understand it is not always feasible to take care of your parents yourself, and we now have nursing homes.

But when I am old, and put in such place, which is understaffed, and no one has the time to deal with me, and the only companion I have is an AI electronic device, why would I want to live any longer? Or why wouldn't I be better off senile? The only explanation is that a minimal preservation of my mental abilities would be easier for the (few) humans taking care of me.
A sad 28 year old.

Z

Re:Sounds familiar...

[waterbear]

Why does it sound like a 5600$ version of Eliza?

Old people often have failing memories and need tools that remind them of specifics. One thing they would need above all out of a machine like this (if they can get over the shock of the idea of looking to a machine for this kind of help anyway) would be intelligent prompting, with specific words or items that they are likely to have forgotten.

I agree the description makes this robot sound like an expensive 'Eliza'. If reflecting and being vague rather than specific prompting is really what it will do, then it's going to be specially useless to the elderly.

-wb-

Video clip of anti-senility robots

[hoggoth]

I found this video clip of the Japanese robots they will be selling to old people to avoid senility.