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Japan's Elderly Nix Robot Helpers
SteeldrivingJon writes with this quote from a story at the BBC:
"In Japan, robots are friendly helpers, not Terminators. So when they join the workforce, as they do often in factories, they are sometimes welcomed on their first day with Shinto religious ceremonies. But whether the sick and elderly will be as welcoming to robot-like tech in their homes is a question that now vexes a Japanese care industry that is struggling with a massive manpower shortage. Automated help in the home and hospitals, believe some, could be the answer. A rapidly aging first world is also paying close attention to Japan's dalliance with automated care. ... The country's biggest robot maker, Tmsuk, created a life-like one-meter tall robot six years ago, but has struggled to find interested clients. Costing a cool $100,000 a piece, a rental program was scrapped recently because of 'failing to meet demands of consumers' and putting off patients at hospitals. 'We want humans caring for us, not machines,' was one response."
Machineists. Believers in Carbon Superiority.
In Soviet Japan robots use old people.
Extreme Programming - Redundant Array of Inexpensive Developers
We want humans, not machines to care for us. Might make the pill a little easier to swallow if the machines were hot though.
Rhymes that keep their secrets will unfold behind the clouds.There upon the rainbow is the answer to a neverending story
Well, if you want humans to care for you, Japan, you just might have to accept people who don't speak or look Japanese. Get over your completely homogeneous society already!
"War makes me sad." - Me
Maybe they don't have Old Glory Robot Insurance.
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
Don't like new technology!? Wow, who would've thought. Except for everyone, ever. Duh.
There is no -1 Disagree.
At something like $1000/unit, I bet these people would be singing a different tune.
1. many countries complain about the downside of immigration. but japan is one of the few countries that actually polices it obsessively, such that there is very little, and what little of it that there is, is strictly temporary and vigorously policed. as such, japan has a greying population and has to build robots, because they fear koreans or chinese or filipinos will somehow destroy their country. nonsense. there's nothing wrong with controlled immigration, but the japanese have a very weird hang up about it. still, considering their racial hang ups, you have to wonder what bothers the elderly more: a nonjapanese nurse or a robot?
2. finally, there's this story:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/28/world/asia/28generation.html
japan is a "grey democracy," a gerokelptocracy (made up word): the elderly hoarde the power in corporations and in society's rules such that the young can't get a foothold. young workers are underpaid and overworked in companies purposefully to support the perks for older dead wood in the company. such that many young japanese now just want to leave the country. this of course exacerbates japan's serious problem of a top heavy age distribution: who is going to pay for the care of all of the older japanese?
so robots caring for the elderly might be a funny tech article, and us techies might think of the japanese trying to get robots in all these domestic situations as laudable. but its actually the sign of a social sickness. the whole subject matter really speaks of some very serious social problems japan has, that are only going to get worse, unless japan makes some difficult choices, and soon
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
don't make robots, make exo-suits that allow them to care for themselves
tell'm to strap on a articulated bodysuit that lets twingy muscles amplify goals?
damn, wire me up when I can get outta bed, and I'll get myself out...
I'd much rather have a prosthesis running down my arm and wipe my own ass, than a robot that carries me to the toilet and wipes for me.
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
Oh, come on who wouldn't want a Japanese robot helper
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glUnzzoFUxg
or
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SE2VCwYDjx0
or
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLXGS0J52co
or
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJ6v3erZjGE
"We want humans caring for us, not machines"
Fair enough. Health care is not a place for elaborate gimmicks.
Of course we've developed all sorts of devices which improve health care. Thermometers, for example, take away subjective guesswork. Monitoring instruments allow effective and economical observation of acute-care patients, at least insofar as various simple measurable symptoms are concerned.
All that is great. Bedside light switches are great, for that matter. And $100,000 goes a long way when buying equipment of that kind.
Now consider a medical device whose substantial function is to look somewhat like a living being. This device does not provide care. Except in cases of fairly advanced dementia, nobody is fooled. Its monitoring ability, if any, is no better than existing devices. Very considerable work is needed to provide a suitable environment for a mobile robot.
In short, it's a solution looking for a problem. I get that. I managed a robotics research lab for 12 years. We're always on the lookout for possible applications of our research. Sometimes we overreach ourselves. This seems to be one of those times.
Parity: What to do when the weekend comes.
All they need is to get some good robot insurance and they'll be fine.
we caused the problem/we're not DOing anything/damned internet.
DUH... OF COURSE?
Japanese society can come up with great ideas, but a lot of times major ideas are not thought through all the way. This was one of those ideas, it was innovation for innovations sake and didn't really solve the problem of too many seniors and not enough facilities to take care of them. I mean, how much human care could $100,000 have provided to an entire senior center? Economically it didn't even make sense.
A basic tenant of human care is the human interaction part of it. People (yes, we're talking about people here! Seniors are still people!) still need human interaction and care that no robotic platform will ever provide. Full stop. Never.
If the world isn't beating a path to your door you're doing something wrong.
Use the robots to free up staff, let the human staff take care of the elderly. Have more automation in test results, checking on patients that are unconscious, filling meds, etc.
I'm sure their is a list of things the people in the hospitals hate to do that are boring, repeatable, and don't involve a patient directly. Put the robots there.
Grammer Nazis - I mod you "troll" unless you actually add something on-topic. Yes, I know I have mispellings in my sig.
--jch
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZH4K3OkRqL8
Mobile robots just aren't very good yet. But progress, after decades of frustration, is now rapid. Willow Garage is making real progress. Their mobile robot can already fold towels, starting from a pile of randomly placed towels. When it can change a bed, they'll have something useful.
My guess is that the killer app for this will be a mobile robot for hotels that can clean a room and reset it for the next occupant. Give this ten years.
Dude, that's Japan we're talking about. Making it hot there would involve tentacles or invisible penises. Well, with the recent news about invisibly cloaks at least the latter might soon be feasible ;)
Nah, if they want to sell hot robots, they should cater to young horny nerds in the west. Some of us would have considered an Asimo with a fleshlight attached to be ultra-hot ;)
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
> In Japan, robots are friendly helpers, not Terminators.
At least, for now.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
The headline of the BBC article about this story: No, robot: Japan's elderly fail to welcome their robot overlords source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12347219
I can never spell "recursion" correctly on Google
Yeah, they know that robots steal old people's medicine and eat it for fuel.
And when they grab you with their claws, you can't get break away because they're made out of metal and robots are strong.
I don't know why the scientists make them!
Robot tech has not reached the point to where it can provide any real assistance to the elderly. Right now, it is just an expensive toy. We need a number of breakthroughs in AI for this to work as unsupervised aid to the elderly.
They could always lift the xenophobic near-total ban on foreigners working in their country but that would be preposterous!
the smearmongering communist witch hunter?
please don't tell me you hold this man up as an example of anything except as a very dangerous demagogue
of course the corporate corruption of our democracy needs to be changed. but it will be a cold day in hell before you convince anyone joe mccarthy is an example of anything except an asshole
although, it is an interesting sign to me that his name should come up again. we are currently suffering a political movement in this country that doubts the president was born in hawaii and is a "secret muslim." classic joe mccarthy style smearmongering. and then there's that bill ayers guilt-by-association. heck if it works, bring back old joe as a hero, right?
"have you sir ever associated with any member of the communist party." lol old joe! yes, it makes sense now. bringing back 1950s style fear and hysteria. learning from the best, i guess. thanks, right wing assholes
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The current state of the art in robotics is far too limited. If they could build a robot that could cook, clean, do laundry/dishes, and help you get dressed, I'm sure they would be more popular.
Think of the Will Smith movie version of "I, Robot" where the robot cooks an apple pie from scratch. That's what you need.
Necron69
Besides the obvious price and limited capabilities issues, I think where they fell down was in treating patients as objects to be "taken care of".
They needed to put the patient in control.
The robotic wheelchair/bed in the article will likely be much more popular, as it enables patients to do things for themselves. But reaching things with it might be difficult - perhaps it needs to be designed to bundle up the patient so it can hold them vertically, as if standing, so they can get closer to tables and counters and such. In effect, make a giant mobile hand and arm that can gently grab the person and move them around as they direct, instead of a mobile bed.
The right market for human-like robots, right now, is in interactive sex dolls.
Just imagine being helped by a robot in a hospital. It would be fucking awesome. Robot companies: please, please, please don't give up!
Listen Koji, just go and import a lot of third world cheap labor in the form of Jose, Juan, Ravinder, Jagdish, ... Problem solved!!! .....
Hey Koji, I'm talking here...
Hiroshi Yamamoto covers this exact topic in one of the short stories in The Songs of Ibis. The angle there is the introduction of the first past-the-uncanny-valley android robot for nursing the elderly. Yamamoto takes on many of the particular challenges of working with the elderly (and with an aging population). The stories generally have a lovely classic sci-fi feel, using fiction to simultaneously explore new worlds and topical subject matter. It's also pretty darn near Clarke's definition of 'hard' sci-fi (and comp-sci-fi!) while remaining thoroughly enjoyable.
Surely there must be some stable country with a young workforce that wouldn't mind caring for elderly Japanese?
What local government official wouldn't lick their chops at the prospect of a bunch of people with pensions guaranteed by a government, creating service and construction jobs nearby?
There are many Japanese already living in California, and a glut of real estate in certain areas--particulary the "Inland Empire". Even some parts of the Bay Area are in trouble, although some of them are virtually irredemable due to the presence of heavy industry over a seismic zone.
This is just one small example. I bet other parts of the US, and other countries would have suitable accomodations.
The last great Japanese export could be elderly people with streams of pension income.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Well, in Europe that are complaining about immigration are the ones which have decent fertility rates. (e.g. Britain, France, Germany; Italy is exception) While in Eastern-Europe the fertility is around 1.3 and people are pretty neutral towards immigration, but nobody wants to come anyway, because of lower wages.
You can stand in line for the next teller or use the ATM now.
You can stand in line at the cafeteria or have the robot bring your food now.
Your choice.
Have gnu, will travel.
What these folks need is robot insurance. For robots are made of metal, and are strong. They eat old people's medicine for fuel.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
see this guy?:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Reiser
he made a great file system. he's also a MURDERING SCUMBAG. guess what? HIS STATUS AS MURDERING SCUMBAG OBLITERATES EVERYTHING ELSE HE DID
welcome to reality, get used to it
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
given less than a year for a generation...
Hardly enough time for good selective pressures to take effect, though... and surely the socialization of the animals with their owners would be paramount, and that takes a lot of time to check. (We already have some cats who don't seem to care about their owners. I'd rather not give them intelligence and tool-using capacity.)
Non-Japanese care workers or die alone like dogs. That they're trying to solve this using robots is just sad... so pathetic.
The people complaining about not enough young people are the same ones who didn't produce enough offspring. They're having a hard time finding mates due to their unrealistic expectations. They might want to relax the rules for more immigrant spouses from other countries. Yes that dilutes their Japanese gene pool, but it's better than going to zero at the rate they're headed.
"In Japan robots are friendly helpers not Terminators."
This idiotic meme just won't die, thanks to eternally lazy reporters. Tip to the BBC: Outside of Japan, robots are not Terminators. The Terminator was a movie character. It's fiction. Get it?
Here in the real world, people and companies outside of Japan are falling all over themselves researching, building, and commercializing robots as home helpers, caretakers, special-needs assistants, workers, and more –the same as in Japan. Sorry, BBC, but if you want to claim there's some magical difference in Japan, you have to demonstrate it, not just assert it.
From my home in Tokyo, where I can assure you the average person has zero daily contact with helper-type robots, I got so tired of this meme I ripped it apart at http://www.homejapan.com/japan-and-robots . The robot-loving "Westerners" I describe should feel mighty familiar to Slashdot readers (who, unlike the BBC, are probably smart enough to get that "OMG robots are evil Terminators!" is the stuff of jokes and movies, not the attitude of real people).
Jeeze, just spend 10% less on the military and plow this money into realy pushing the existing biotech/nanotech research......take a lesson from Aubrey de Grays Mprize and SENS foundations (he is now with the SENS foundation).....they have identified the 7 aging issues that 20th century medical science identified (mitochondrial damage, dna errors in cells, junk buildup inside and ouside of cells that the body cannot break down (but some bacteria have evloved to break down (read his book: Ending Aging: The Rejuvenation Breakthroughs that Could Reverse Human Aging in Our Lifetime)).
With all the fantastic breakthroughs that are happening now (Craig Venters synthetic cells created from a cad file, early nanotech able to kill/control some cancers, interesting reversal of some aging in telleromerase defficent mice (not perfect, but a good proof of some concept). the list goes on and on.)
Aubre estimates that 1 billion spent over 10 years could control and reverse aging in a mouse model (by developing tech to fix the aging damage as it occures). With the new super computers being developed all the time, we could use them to unravel all the information processes that the dna and the rna (etc) represent (remember Craig Venters synthetic cell, now he is developing cells to take the co2 out of the atmosphere to make fuels and plastics, clean up the enviroment, plus the ongoing efforts to develop advanced tabletop nanomanfacturing eventuality).
How many people realize that most of the supercomputers in the US, for instance, spend most of their time exploring science that has a goal of new nuclear bombs, materials, any new science that can go "boom" eventualy!!
Read jared Diamonds Collapse, or Gywnne Dyers "War", 2nd edition and you understand why we develop advanced civillizations that collapse after too many wars, we should be using high-tech tools to create life, not destroy it....we should develop advanced nantoech to fix our cells, use nanomanufacturing to make and recycle all our new toys instead of burying them or burning them.
If you can't import cheap labor to act as caregivers, then send the elderly to a country with cheap labor. The philippines has set up retirement villages for english, japanese and korean speaking old folks. The lower cost of living is a plus so even modest retirement benefits can easily pay for a nice house, a caregiver, a maid, a gardener and a driver. Relatives are just a call away with broadband internet and a webcam equipped PC. google japanese retirement philippines
"A rapidly aging first world is also paying close attention to Japan"
What the hell? You're implying that Japan is a third-world country?
Let the racist bastards die off I say. :-P
When Japan faced labor shortages two decades ago, their guest worker program required proof of Japanese heritage in order to apply for a visa. Later, they paid them to leave and agree to never return (http://finance.yahoo.com/career-work/article/106964/Japan-Pays-Foreign-Workers-to-Go-Home).
Excuse me while I go look around in case someone yells Banzai! before trying to crack my skull with a shinai for having made them lose face.