Ronald C Arkin, professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology, saying more research in human-robot interaction is needed before overly relying on robots to take care of the elderly. (AP)
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Simply turning our grandparents over to teams of robots abrogates our society's responsibility to each other, and encourages a loss of touch with reality for this already mentally and physically chall
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MeanRingo
Uh, yes. Thank you!
escape_artist
Finally someone has the clearheadedness and foresight to say the obvious, even it is someone outside Japan! I've always thought how utterly irresponsible the way both companies and consumers in Japan are so gleefully obsessed about leaving our/their elders to the robots rather than, say, hire more care workers from abroad, or plan ahead to foster more care workers in Japan. The hastily announced idea to encourage recently fired workers to quickly learn to become careworkers only shows how bereft of ideas the Japanese government continues to be. Not everything has a high-tech solution, nor should it. And technology only for the sake of technology, without thinking of the later personal & societal ramifications, is an unwise road to travel too.
What I'm sure is partly true, too, is that the big companies like Panasonic pushing their pet robots on the elderly in lieu of real people have never really done any studies with real elderly people to see what THEY want. It's mainly young workers, many of them techies escaping into their geekdom, who are designing these things anyway. What do they really know about this somewhat hidden part of their society? Always asking the same so-called "talents" or anyone younger than 50 is not the same, either.
What's needed now are more Japanese (whose voices count) making similar statements of the folly of this robot approach to elderly care.
mousepotato464
Maybe it is better to sit grandma in front of the TV all day.
nath
A quote of the day with at least some depth of heart, soul and more.
Zarusoba
Human over-population is destroying the Earth.
We cannot keep promoting reproduction as as way of caring for the elderly.
We need to look to robotics as a new way of caring for the elderly.
bakabaka
He just doesn't understand about the uniqueness of Japanese robots....
LFRAgain
If I may take this one step further, we need to look to robots to do those menial tasks that prevent us from spending more time with the elderly, not to mention the other members of our families.
PaulieWalnuts
how could he? I mean do they even have 4 seasons in Georgia?