In Japan, Old People Talk to Robots

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In Japan, Old People Talk to Robots

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday December 1, 2004 @11:00PM from the just-visit-your-grandmother dept.

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.""

40 of 352 comments (clear)

How to react? by kahei · 2004-12-01 23:02 · Score: 5, Funny

Should I:

a) Weep for the millions of human tragedies that must have taken place to lead so many to this extreme of loneliness and general patheticness, or...

b) Laugh because it's called 'Snuggling Ifbot'?

Eh, I'll go for b). Hee hee hee... 'snuggling ifbot'... hee hee hee...

--
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
Not very large by Anonymous Coward · 2004-12-01 23:02 · Score: 5, Funny

How will it push anyone down the stairs?
1. Re:Not very large by ZaMoose · 2004-12-02 00:00 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  It's not often that The Terrible Secret of Space gets made into a joke on /. Bravo, AC!
  
  Everyone else, beware of the Pusher Robot, he is not to be trusted. I, the Shover Robot am here to save you!
  
  --
  I wish I had a kryptonite cross, because then you could keep Dracula and Superman away.
2. Re:Not very large by Anonymous Coward · 2004-12-02 01:22 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  It is a bit sad that you did not link to the original ICQ prank (from somethingawful.com that the flash movie you linked to was based upon: somethingawful.com.
  It is much better :)
rather than forcing it to use it's AI for conversa by way2trivial · 2004-12-01 23:03 · Score: 2, Interesting

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...

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every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
Sounds familiar... by koi88 · 2004-12-01 23:03 · Score: 5, Funny

Sounds like a 5600$ version of Eliza.

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I don't need a signature.
1. Re:Sounds familiar... by c0dedude · 2004-12-01 23:14 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  Why does it sound like a 5600$ version of Eliza?
  
  --
  Since when has this country used intellectual elite as a pejorative term?
2. Re:Sounds familiar... by TuringTest · 2004-12-01 23:16 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  Can you elaborate on that?
  
  --
  Singularity: a belief in the "God" idea with the "demiurge" relation inverted.
3. Re:Sounds familiar... by Zorilla · 2004-12-01 23:21 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  Haha, by far the funniest line I've ever heard in Dr. Sbaitso is when my brother typed in, "I CAN THROW POOP"
  
  Dr. Sbaitso: "CAN YOU THROW POOP FOR ME NOW?"
  
  --
  
  It would be cool if it didn't suck.
4. Re:Sounds familiar... by TuringTest · 2004-12-02 00:00 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  Do you wish that you had mod points right now youd get modded up?
  
  --
  Singularity: a belief in the "God" idea with the "demiurge" relation inverted.
5. Re:Sounds familiar... by waterbear · 2004-12-02 00:29 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  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-
Snuggling Ifbot? by deletedaccount · 2004-12-01 23:03 · Score: 5, Funny

Great name to go senile with. That's the kind of name I want around when I'm 85 and dribbling, "you seen the snuggling ifbot today son?"
1. Re:Snuggling Ifbot? by valdean · 2004-12-02 06:27 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  Dream Supply passed up a golden opportunity to name it Mr. Roboto.
  Robot (sounding like Ned on South Park): Errrmm..... nice job on quiz.
  Elderly Owner: Oh, domo arigato, Mr. Roboto!
I am not a doctor by nick+korma · 2004-12-01 23:04 · Score: 2, Insightful

but how could this possibly be used to combat the onset of senility?? I can understand how the robot could be used to teach children or adults another language but old people telling the ipod that they are bored will not do anything to stop them forgetting where they live or where they left the car...
1. Re:I am not a doctor by Max+Romantschuk · 2004-12-01 23:08 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  but how could this possibly be used to combat the onset of senility?
  
  Studies have shown that passively sitting around not talking to anyone all day doesn't exactly help your brain keep in shape. (You have to exercise it, you know? Seriously.)
  
  --
  .: Max Romantschuk :: http://max.romantschuk.fi/
2. Re:I am not a doctor by Zentac · 2004-12-01 23:10 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  I am no doctor ether, but I'm aware of the general asumption, with medical proof wich I am not femilliar with, that you can train the brain and that keeping it busy will help not getting senile
3. Re:I am not a doctor by nick+korma · 2004-12-01 23:11 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  in which case I really need to move out of my nice quiet server room and interact with the rest of my office - before one day ............ where am I... why have I got no pants on...
I envisioned this way back by Max+Romantschuk · 2004-12-01 23:05 · Score: 2, Insightful

I decided way back that if technology allowed I'd want a virtual persona (themed like "Jeeves" in the English TV series) to keep track of things for me.

I'd love to be able to just look at any screen in the appartment and ask what I was supposed to do today, ask if there are any interesting news etc. A computer won't get bored with you asking for the nth time, and can alert someone if you don't take your medicine. If technology allows, why burden our children? They can come over to visit instead of taking care of you.

I'm not sure I'd want a robot though. Face-in-the-TV is more my style. Think Max Headroom, only with class ;)

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.: Max Romantschuk :: http://max.romantschuk.fi/
In Japan... by tintub · 2004-12-01 23:06 · Score: 5, Funny

In Japan, sanity is talking to a robot called Snuggly Ifbot :-/

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sig under construction...
Like talking to Eliza? by tod_miller · 2004-12-01 23:08 · Score: 2, Funny

Why am I alone?

Why do you think you are alone?

Yes, but you are not alive though are you?

What makes you think that?

You are alive? OMG, what did they do to you?

Tell me more about why you think you are alone.

But you just said you are alive.

What makes you think I just said I was alive?

AAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh.

Lets watch tv and have some fun!

--
#hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
Great. by CosmeticLobotamy · 2004-12-01 23:12 · Score: 2, Interesting

"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.
1. Re:Great. by metlin · 2004-12-01 23:21 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  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"... by DoktorTomoe · 2004-12-01 23:18 · Score: 4, Interesting

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...

--
Screw the FSM - Real geeks believe in the Invisible Pink Unicorn
What is the deal with the Japanese? by Anonymous Coward · 2004-12-01 23:18 · Score: 2, Interesting

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.
1. Re:What is the deal with the Japanese? by Tore+S+B · 2004-12-02 01:42 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  ...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.
  
  --
  toresbe
2. Re:What is the deal with the Japanese? by Maestro4k · 2004-12-02 02:17 · Score: 5, Interesting
  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
In america.... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-12-01 23:26 · Score: 5, Funny

In America, Old people get shot by shotgun toting robots.
1. Re:In america.... by sharkey · 2004-12-02 04:20 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  Puh-leeze! They prefer to be called "Texans".
  
  --
  
  --
  "Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
I welcome the Anti-Senility Industry overlords by RealProgrammer · 2004-12-01 23:32 · Score: 4, Informative

My wife works in a nursing home. It's her job to fill the old folks' day with interesting activities. She has to make sure that each one of them gets interaction that's not related to their health maintenance. They have an elaborate system for tracking and monitoring the amount and type of interaction each resident gets.

"Senility" is a blanket term covering all kinds of maladies, including Alzheimer's, the effects of stroke, and atrophy of various kinds. Most people in geriatrics agree that to stave off senility you should use the same tactics you use to stay healthy now. Eat sensibly, get plenty of exercise (including the horizontal variety if you can get it!), and engage in mentally challenging activities.

The mentally challenging activities that are best at delaying senility are things you've never done before. If you've never played music, try learning to play an instrument. Learn another language, especially sign language. If you have an elderly relative, get them hooked on email. It won't take long, since they're usually starved for communication.

A talking robot is fine, but old people really need young people.

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sigs, as if you care.
Support by cerberusss · 2004-12-01 23:35 · Score: 4, Funny

We have these robots working at the support department of the company I work at.
Customer: I can't log into my database instance
Support: You can't log into your database instance?
Et cetera...

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8 of 13 people found this answer helpful. Did you?
Re:Depends what they're used for... by Savage-Rabbit · 2004-12-02 00:02 · Score: 2, Interesting

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.

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Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
Robot, schmobot by ajs318 · 2004-12-02 00:12 · Score: 4, Funny

If you want something to keep you fit, healthy, happy and not lonely in your old age, why the freakin' hell not just get a freakin' dog already? Granted, the basic out-of-the-box model needs some hardware mods to avoid spawning too many child processes, and you have to update its virus and worm protection every few months. But you should get at least 6 years uptime -- and probably even more from one using generic, commodity parts from a mixture of suppliers.

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Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
Well in Soviet Russia... by olivesaregross · 2004-12-02 00:18 · Score: 2, Funny

Old robots talk to you!!!
Sad by elgatozorbas · 2004-12-02 00:19 · Score: 3, Interesting

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:Diamond Age... by TFGeditor · 2004-12-02 00:22 · Score: 3, Funny

"its makers plan to program the robot in English -- not for export, but to teach the language to Japanese children."

Child: Teach me English.

Robot: All your base are belong to us.

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Ignorance is curable, stupid is forever.
Re:Actual Rest Home Conversations by LabRat007 · 2004-12-02 02:28 · Score: 2, Insightful

"Those are the robots they're giving to Japanese old people!?!"

You see, by eliminating any of the old Japanese people who succumb to senility, desptie Snuggly Ifbot tell them otherwise, they keep their success rate at 100%. The will of course eventually lead to a "happy" version of the robot that will eradiate all sorrow on earth.

Let me be the first to say how very very happy I am at these developments. SO VERY HAPPY...

--
"Capital punishment makes the state into a murderer. Imprisonment makes the state into a gay dungeon-master"
Video clip of anti-senility robots by hoggoth · 2004-12-02 02:50 · Score: 2, Interesting

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

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Old Glory Robot Insurance by kentyman · 2004-12-02 04:22 · Score: 2, Informative

For when the metal ones decide to come for you... and they will!

http://www.robotcombat.com/video_oldglory_hi.htm l

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You know where you are? You're in the $PATH, baby. You're gonna get executed!
Japanese robots talk. US robots shoot! by payndz · 2004-12-02 04:46 · Score: 2, Funny

Combine the two...
"I'm bored today."
[KLA-CHAK!] "Activating weapons systems! Target located! Preparing to terminate!"
"I'mnotboredanymore! AAAAIIEEE!"

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You must think in Russian.
English-teaching robot by thegnu · 2004-12-02 04:59 · Score: 2, Funny

They could call him Clippy, and when children say stuff like, "I want to go play!" the robot would reply, "You want an apple? Get it yourself."

Really, I'm terrified of the language that these children will be learning. First off, I don't trust programmers with the English language when it IS their first language. Second, robots are stupid. And have a database of canned responses. And will misinterpret the children.

There will be an army of asian children who speak excellent english, but don't know what the fuck they're talking about.

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