An elderly lady just died in the neighborhood at the age of 67 from something diabetes related. It shocked me to see me how well dressed and with which expensive car their kids arrived to clear the rented place. The lady could barely walk, but was living in the 1st floor. She wasn’t able to reach ground floor alone in most days.<p>What I want to say is I am still shocked from the heartless western society where it is the norm to put one’s parents into ugly understaffed, but very expensive care facility waiting them to die. Even a modern one with a crate on wheels with a display in it.
Years ago I worked in a startup also trying to develop such robots, to care for both disabled and elderly people. We were too early, but alas.<p>The complaint this would increase loneliness was often heard, mostly by the human caretakers employed by the care homes we were testing in.<p>Especially the younger disabled people did not have much issue with the robots: they hoped to get a way to be more independent. Friends & family enough to not be lonely anyways.
And sometimes you just want to get a drink, grab a dropped pen or go to the bathroom without needing to push a button and wait for someone to come help you.<p>IIRC, this held true for the elderly as well, to a lesser extent. Ideally, robot clear up time from menial, mechanical labor to offer more social interaction to avoid loneliness. This is far off though and our world is far from ideal...
I have very little experience with old people.<p>When I grow up I want a robot who can pick me up when I fall over because the lady in the flat above me had to bang on the floor for ages at 2am before I woke up and organised help for her.<p>And I'd like the robot to be able to take dinner off the stove if I get distracted while I'm cooking my dinner because the nice old man in the flat a few doors down burnt his dinner and there was tons of smoke. He was fine but his dinner wasn't.<p>I don't know what the robot will be able to do to help with social isolation but I've got some time to figure out ideas. I don't really want my kids to take care of me when they are in their 50s and 60s. They should be able to enjoy themselves.
I am sure robot assistants will be quite integral to our society later but am I just uninformed or does there seem to be lack of progress for the actual mechanical engineering of robots? They all still seem these big, hulking and clunky metal pieces with very rigid movements (not very flexible). One of them might also just slip on a banana peel and crush someone.
We need laws to prevent pawning off people we dont care about onto automated care. Everybody should be against this.<p>Related comment: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35199966" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35199966</a>
My father told me once to raise at least 3 children, to improve my chances of having someone looking after me at a certain age.
It worked for him, he had 3 children and my sister takes care of his needs now that he's 70.