November 13, 2004
SUPERMAX ISLAND:
Robots and us (The Japan Times, Nov. 14, 2004)
Of all the nations involved in such research, Japan is the most inclined to approach it in a spirit of fun -- hence Aibo and QRIO and the other quirky assistants and companions dreamed up here. The United States, by contrast, has invented robotic military vehicles, vacuum cleaners, gardeners and pill dispensers -- all thoroughly utilitarian applications. According to some observers, however, there is more common ground between the two approaches than might seem apparent.The key consideration is: Who is going to use these robots? The answer is obvious -- the swollen generation now nearing retirement age. These people are going to need help from wherever they can get it; their children will certainly not be up to the task of providing the needed amount of physical and medical care, as well as companionship, diversion and, yes, fun, in the home, in nursing-care facilities and in hospitals. As the developed world's populations age, the question of who is going to look after the growing ranks of elderly is no longer purely academic.
The way many researchers see it, robotics technology is nearing the point of genuinely popular usefulness just in time.
Imagine how dysfunctional your culture has to have become when your fondest dream is for machines to obviate the need for the elderly majority to ever have human contact. Posted by Orrin Judd at November 13, 2004 10:33 PM
I don't know, but I would suspect that it is probably a terrible loss of face for both the elderly parent and the middle-aged child to perform basic cleanliness exercises on the parent.
In the US, a lot of families cross that breach. In Japan, maybe not.
Posted by: jim hamlen at November 13, 2004 10:58 PMThe dream is to obviate the need for the strongest to be forced to lay hands on the weakest.
Posted by: Noel at November 14, 2004 3:36 PMExcept, of course, that no society's "fondest dream" is to eliminate the need for the elderly to have human contact.
On this issue you have much in common with those who predicted that accelerating humans to 35 MPH on those new-fangled "railroads" would cause them to die.
Robots are a tool, nothing more, and will replace nurse's aids and orderlies, but not medical personnel or social directors.
The elderly will continue to have human contact.
Predicting how seniors will be affected in a robot-filled future, based on how psychopathic prisoners-for-life behave when locked-down for 23 hours a day, is obviously nonsense.
Posted by: Michael Herdegen at November 15, 2004 5:56 AMMichael:
Their doctor won't provide human contact either:
http://www.betterhumans.com/News/news.aspx?articleID=2003-08-07-1
But your notion that someone's going to drive these robot-tended elderly to see one is quaint.
Posted by: oj at November 15, 2004 7:30 AMImagine how dysfunctional your culture has to have become when your fondest dream is for machines to obviate the need for the elderly majority to ever have human contact.
Why should they? We're talking Baby Boomers here, and the only "human contact" they've had all their lives is genitalia-into-any-orifice. That and manipulation of others for My Own Convenience.
I've been denied human contact for around 30 years thanks to The Sexual Revolution (TM); why should those who ghettoized me fare any better?
Posted by: Ken at November 15, 2004 1:22 PM