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Aging Japan Looks to Bots For Care
An anonymous reader writes to mention a Yahoo! news article about robotics in Japan. While many research bots are working on interacting with their environment, some of Japan's commercial robotics are focusing on building bots for elderly care. From the article: "The 100-kilogram (220-pound) robot can also distinguish eight different kinds of smells, can tell which direction a voice is coming from and uses powers of sight to follow a human face. 'In the future, we would like to develop a capacity to detect a human's health condition through his breath,' Mukai said. Japan is bracing for a major increase in needs for elderly care due to a declining birth rate and a population that is among the world's longest living." That sure sounds familiar.
There was an older article (six months to a year and a half ago, maybe) about the elderly in Japan turning to robots.
The article had an especially strong lead paragraph about an immigrant who would never be able to get a job taking care of the elderly because she was a foreigner and because she wasn't a robot; the point of the article was that racism is so strong in Japan that old people actually shy away from a human's touch when the human isn't the right kind, and that they prefer robots. (Well, that was one possible conclusion -- certainly there are others.)
Does anyone remember seeing this? Any hints on how to track it down?
We recently had heard in the office over one of the Yellow Machine that's made by Anthology Solutions.
The problem with this type of research is that the elderly are among the least able to pay for the development in this area. Monies must be siphoned from other profitable medical areas like pediatrics and radiology in order to pay for advancements in elderly and hospice care.
It makes sense, then, that the guy's name is Mukai. 'Mu' means 'none' or 'no' in Japanese. 'Kai' means 'shell'. So Mr. No Shells can also be read as Mr. No Clams. And if you ain't got no clams, you're one poor dude.
We have the problem of people in high places just looking out for themselves -- caring for them won't be their problem; life-extension or other medical advances won't be in developed in time to help them, etc.
And the sad part is, when younger people get into those places, we will probably do that same thing.
DYWYPI?
Hrm, i'd like a Beowulf Cluster of these! What would you do with a Beowulf Cluster of old people?
Versus about 4 million yen for a real live nurse, if only Japan was more accepting of foreign labour to look after all the old folk.
A Japanese girlfriend of mine has a sick mother who needs constant care all of the time. Nobody is at home to look after her. The father needs to work to pay the bills. She doesn't want to quit her job to stay home to look after her. It is expensive to live in Japan, and it's boring to stay home and look after parents. She doesn't want to do it... in fact none of the family want to do it. She doesn't want to throw her future and career away to do it. Her whole family feels that her mother is a real burden to everyone else, and the whole family wishes that she would just go into a hospital and not be an extra thorn in everyone's lifestyle.
I just can't help but feel that it's very sad that it comes down to needing a robot, but I guess lifestyles and nuclear families are upsetting Japan's old age care system.
READY.
PRINT ""+-0
He's called RI-MAN, Robot Interacting with huMAN. No word on his pushing or shoving capabilities, vis-a-vis a stair-rich environment.
Sorry man, that just a few steps to close to being used as batteries!
Horns are really just a broken halo.
Although a robot is being built, the developers are still a long way from making a commercially available product. By the time the functionality and usability of the robot is at the standard required, the user's needs may have changed, as will their price range. We're still a long way from seeing robots caring in an everyday household.
I for one, welcome our breath-smelling robot overlords!
Don't be apathetic. Procrastinate!
I'm glad I got grandma to sign up for Old Glory Robot Insurance.
The Rapture is NOT an exit strategy.
In countries near and around japan labor is cheap, dirt cheap. Philipines, Malaysia, Taiwan, the list can go on. I'd expect this robot to cost no less than 70-80k and would only be for the extremely wealthy %1 of the population.
For the average japanese joe in thier sunset years, they're more likely to import labor from other countries to work in thier nursing home facilities (why not? We already import Filipino nurses like crazy in california) for the price of 1 robot, you could pay the salary of 4 imported nurses, or a nursing home facility.
And despite the report saying there is a decline in birth rates, everyone has family to lean on at some point.
Realistically, would you want to be taken care of a cold, unloving robot that couldn't imagine what I was feeling? What's this thing going to do, detect if I stop breathing and call the coroner? No thanks.
I don't think its so much racism as pride. Which is more preferrable, being able to push a button to raise your bed into a sitting position and then using an assisted walker to make it on your own to the bathroom (for the third time that night), or calling out weakly to your nurse at 4am and hoping they hear you and respond before you wet the bed.
from the article you wanted (posted above)
Interacting with other people can be difficult for the Japanese, he says, "because they always have to think about what the other person is feeling, and how what they say will affect the other person." But it is impossible to embarrass a robot, or be embarrassed, by saying the wrong thing.
The simple truth is you can't be a burden to a machine. Putting it all down to racism is akin to saying that American's elderly is so accustom to thinking of other races as beneath them that they have don't get embarressed by it at all.
You need people to get old and die.
Most people who lived believing that demonic posession rather than germs were responsible for sickness died still believing it. They were just eventually replaced by people whose minds were open to new theories.
If people don't die die, old (wrong) ideas will never die, and humans will never improve.
Anime has already tackled this subject by none other than the creator of the pop-culture anime-film AKIRA.
1 42849877/sr=8-2/ref=pd_bbs_2/103-2542910-4413459?_ encoding=UTF8&v=glance&n=130 ) was an anime film about a computerized hospital bed that is supposed to care for an elderly patient. However, the computer turns out to be a prototype for a battle robot and to top it off, the damn thing takes on the personality of his former wife, and therein starts a chase through Japan, tearing up the countryside, as the bed tries to take the patient on a trip to the beach, one last time.
Roujin Z ( See http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/630506251X/qid=1
Overall, it's a pretty decent film and very amusing as well.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
An elderly Japanese man wakes up in a small, white, hermetically-sealed room. He's alone, except for a shiny metal robot with red glowing eyes.
The robot hands him a note, which reads, "Dear Honorable Father: Given the rising cost of healthcare and living, we've decided to have your interned for your own good. The robot will take care of your every bodily need, feed you nutritious OldsterChow(TM) and constantly monitor your lifesigns. Because we don't want you getting sick by being exposed to other ill people or spending hard-earned money on frivolities that are merely fleeting earthly sensations in an already dimming life, you'll have to get used to spending the rest of your days in the safety of this room with the robot as your only companion. We've been told that the robot has a somewhat limited vocabulary. Oh well. Cheers and have a great life!"
The robot pokes the old man in the ribs and asks in the politest, most formal Japanese, "Honorable sir or madam, have you expired so that I may dispose of the worn-out container of your physical being and relieve your kin or other payees of the burden of having to pay for my services?"
The man throws the note at the robot and curses profusely. The robot just stands there, unflinching, and after a moment pokes the man and begins reciting again, "Honorable sir or madam, have you expired...."
...and all that crap. All the Japanese, Chinese and Koreans I've ever known from those countries take family obligations and expectations very seriously. (Warning! Gross generalization detected!)
I find it hard to believe that a culture as deeply grounded in society and family as the Japanese would actually "abandon" their elderly. I'm more inclined to believe that there are simply not enough young bodies to care for the old bodies. Caring for an elderly person who is losing mobility and strength is a lot of work, and it seems the older they get, the more they try to hang on to their independence. Tools that will compensate for the deficiencies of an aging body are a way to allow a person to be independent longer and maintain their dignity. Nursing care is when you have to be given baths, medications, meals and helped to walk or wheel to the bathroom. Independence is being able to dress yourself, go where you want, transport your own groceries, clean your own house, cook your own food and accomplish the tasks that make your life worth living, such as gardening or reading. Reading books might now take a magnifying glass, but the magnifying glass gives you the independence to read the book when and where you want. (The average Japanese living space is crowded with lots of things in too little space. It's a lot like living in a submarine. Things are put away, and many times lots of things must be moved to do ordinary tasks like sewing or ironing. For the elderly, this could present a major problem.)
The immigration of nursing care is probably acceptable to someone who needs it, but a "companion" from a different culture, who doesn't share your history and doesn't speak your language well, is less desirable than being independent. (I wonder how many of the people who point to the availability of Indonesian and Filipino "care assistants" are the same who bitch because the Dell or HP technical support in Bangalore doesn't meet their standards..!?! Why is not wanting to be touched by a cultural stranger more "racist" than wanting to be able to clearly understand the person at the other end of the tech support phone?)
Mike Burke
"The mind works quicker than you think!"
Do you really want memories of wars, of terrorising leaders, of the horrors of Facism and Stalinism to die alongside these people? If you've lived through 5 dictatorships, and 5 democracies, you have a better judgement of what is right than if you live healthy for just 65 years, and live half you life wanting change, then half your life regretting it, feeling the old days where better.
I have a Portuguese girlfriend, and she tells me the young population of Portugal today sometimes says they think they need a "dictator light" to settle things in the country. My girl's father was a resistance memeber back in the 70's, and you cannot belive his horror when he hears this.
In the same way, when I was in school, I had the honour of doing a project to interview a WW2 veteran. It made a strong impression on me, and I am now working in an academic instutions researching conflict prevention. The veteran is now dead, and I belive I will never be able to transmit the same impression of war to my kids unless I - God forbid - experience it myself.
I belive one day we will be able to cure the condition known as aging. You don't need people to grow old and die. What a horrid statement... to die may be natural, but to live is a gift unlike any you will ever recive.
. Knut
P.s. of course, in the long run you'll need to expand beyond the mother nest to sustain a longer living population, but that is for a different debate. Eternal life has to come with supporting technologies, or it will surely kill the human race in its cradle.
>> Hell... Wouldn't it be better if those people were around today? I'm still sure Newton would have loved to have all the tools our scientists have today.
Newton probably would have used his clout to condemn Einsteins theory that exposed flaws in his own. That is, if he dragged himself away from searching for bible codes, which is what he spent the last part of his life on.