The creators of Sophia, the robot, have revealed another scary aspect of humanoid: Grace, a health gun designed to help the elderly and isolated.
The prototype device uses AI to diagnose patients and a thermal camera to take their temperatures. It can also provide social stimulation and chat therapy, Reuters reports.
The robot could give some support to overworked doctors and people feeling alone during the pandemic. But, at best, it will increase instead of replacing human caregivers.
Social robots are already widely used in Japan – and some users clearly love them. Eventually they may become essential in an aging world with few workers, but critics fear they will be a cruel way to support the vulnerable.
They warn that robots are less emotionally satisfying than interacting with humans and that their long-term effects remain unknown. Some disputes that the very concept of automatic care is an oxymoron.
It is also concerned that social robots will reduce the user’s contact with human family, friends and caregivers.
“One of the problems of aging is that it often results in loss of social life and human contact,” robot experts Amanda Sharkey and Noel Sharkey said in their newspaper. Grandma and the Robots.
“The concern is that the use of robots in elderly care for tasks such as lifting, carrying or even cleaning could result in a reduction in the human social contact that an elderly person experiences.”
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Hanson Robotics, the creator of Grace, gave the droid the appearance of a woman with Asian features and a nurse’s uniform. Research suggests that anthropomorphic robots can increase user confidence and create a more natural engagement. But it can also lead to overconfidence and unrealistic perceptions about the abilities of robots.
Grace must also prove that it can carry out the propaganda. Hanson Robotics has often been accused of exaggerating the skills of Sofia, the leading AI scientist on Facebook once described as an “animatronic puppet.” If Grace is ever to be offered to my own vulnerable relatives, I would like to know exactly how the strings are pulled.
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Thomas Macaulay