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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.""
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.
How will it push anyone down the stairs?
Sounds like a 5600$ version of Eliza.
I don't need a signature.
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?"
In Japan, sanity is talking to a robot called Snuggly Ifbot :-/
sig under construction...
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
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
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...
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
In America, Old people get shot by shotgun toting robots.
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.
sigs, as if you care.
Customer: I can't log into my database instance
Support: You can't log into your database instance?
Et cetera...
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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.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
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
"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.
Ignorance is curable, stupid is forever.
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.
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.
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.)
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.
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