I can sense a BOFH episode in the making...
Your kids will be glad a UK government-funded robot will be changing your nappy and not them
A nightmarish vision of our future dotage awaits: government-built "care robots". The potential was outlined as part of a £34m investment in research on autonomous systems, announced by the UK's Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) today. With one in seven Brits now expected to be over 75 by 2040, it …
COMMENTS
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Tuesday 29th October 2019 00:30 GMT Jellied Eel
First World Robots! I mean problems!
So the BBC-
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-50205951
Pigs in blankets and other festive meal treats might be in short supply this Christmas, the British Meat Processors Association has warned.
OhNoes!*
Its chief executive, Nick Allen, told the BBC that wrapping cocktail sausages in bacon was done by hand.
He said the job was "fiddly and hard to mechanise".
(but entirely possible** when drunk..)
It said that if the shortage of workers continued post-Brexit, it would "pose a risk to the affordability of British food".
Cancel Christmas and sharpen the spoons!
Now, this isn't a suggestion that we invent a robot that can automatically wrap an OAP in bacon. But one has to start somewhere, like with a sausage***. Which is a suitably BOFHish endeavour, especially if it involves free funding, sausages and bacon.
* We have perhaps reached peak stupid if 21st Century humans have lost the ability to wrap bacon around a sausage themselves. Or just cook sausage and bacon rolls. The real crisis with bacon comes as African Swine Flu spreads.
** Mostly possible, but then in that state, mostly cooked sausage & bacon is good enough..
***No, I don't mean that either, and yes, I may have been drinking..
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Monday 28th October 2019 14:21 GMT Pascal Monett
"make robots better protected against cyber-attacks"
How about not putting in a WiFi or BluTooth antenna ? That will already do wonders to protect them.
Because if you're expecting connected robots with a robust firewall and efficient intrusion detection, well let me just say that, post-Brexit, it would appear there won't be much competence available to write that kind of code.
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Monday 28th October 2019 20:51 GMT Rich 11
Re: "make robots better protected against cyber-attacks"
Like a jewellery heist?
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Monday 28th October 2019 17:13 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Immoral fuckers!
I must be an immoral fucker then. Either that or you've never seen inside, much less worked in an care home. Robots that could gently lift a patient and then walk them slowly and safely to the loo / bathroom / bedroom / dining room would be an immense help and cut falls drastically. (And since all falls require an ambulance to be called, it saves the NHS a ton of money as well.)
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Monday 28th October 2019 19:08 GMT Adair
Re: Immoral fuckers!
Sorry, but bollocks. I've actually had, and continue to have, a lot of contact with frail and I'll elderly people - mostly now in hospital, but in care homes in past years. So, wrong assumption.
There's one thing, and one thing only, that this is all about: MONEY.
It I'd evidence of the lazy, self-centered ness and greed which drives too many of us.
Caring for each other, especially the frail and ill, is probably the highest human activity; and we pay little more than slave wages for people, often foreigners (good on them, and shame on us), to do this incredibly important and honourable work.
Robots will never have the empathy, sensitivity and compassion of a human being. It is a disgrace that we even consider absenting human contact and replacing it with a mere mechanism, as if that is anything but a poverty stricken and immoral substitute.
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Monday 28th October 2019 19:19 GMT Adair
Re: Immoral fuckers!
BTW, I've no problem at all with mechanical aids being available as adjuncts/extensions to human care, but as a substitute? No!
If we haven't the guts, compassion or humility to properly care for each other, especially when ill, infirm, etc. then we really have lost the plot. Personally and as a society. If we sink that low we will deserve all the consequences that come to us.
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Tuesday 29th October 2019 18:47 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Immoral fuckers!
> BTW, I've no problem at all with mechanical aids being available as adjuncts/extensions to human care, but as a substitute? No!
As the IF AC above I assumed that robots able to do anything significant on their own without humans present are so far in the future that it wasn't worth considering. My response was entirely around robots that help carers with the heavy, awkward work under supervision. These are still 10 years away from being available; 20 years away from being common.
There are more specific use-cases that could come sooner: a robot dog that allowed a dementia patient who is otherwise healthy to go for a walk but then lead them back at meal times, or before it gets dark would be feasible sooner.
Personally, I welcome the idea of a robot helping me because I don't want to burden someone else. That doesn't mean I don't want any contact with humans - just a delay before the indignities of old age become totally unavoidable.
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Monday 28th October 2019 22:12 GMT cdrcat
Re: Immoral fuckers!
Your nirvana works for the wealthy (can pay for X people to help them) or it works for a population that doesn't require much help (1 hour of personal help for every 24 of life).
Once a population needs significant help (40 hours per week per week of life) then there is simply not *enough* people to do the "humane" thing.
Even worse, some of the carers are doing shitty inhumane work (lifting the elderly but damaging themselves; elderly looking after the elderly but unwillingly).
We should offload as much of the drudgery as possible and keep our elderly as *independent* as they wish. If we can use machines to do this we should - try telling your mum she should replace her scooter with coolies!
Reserve the human hours for real care - human touch, interaction, and brotherhood.
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Wednesday 30th October 2019 22:45 GMT Wicked Witch
Re: Immoral fuckers!
There are only really a few other options.
1. Keep going as at present: allow immigration to supply enough warm bodies to care for OAPs on top of everything else people want done that's being done by everyone who isn't caring for the elderly. The catch is that those immigrants also get old so now you've got even more old folks to take care of, so you need even more immigrants.
2. Have more babies, and get them to work in aged care. That has all the problems of 1, but takes 20 years longer to produce workers and costs more, thought it reduces the cultural change that upsets certain parties.
3. Like 1, but use guest workers who leave when they retire. This can work, albeit with a pay premium which may or may not be cheaper than paying for their care, but you've got to be careful to make sure they don't form attachments (marriages, children, etc.) that would be politically impossible to break up (or even forbidden by a treaty such as the ECHR). For an example of that plan not working, see Germany's Turks.
4. Abandon other activities (easily achieved by paying more for carers so people choose that instead of the careers). Doesn't do the economy much good, but it works.
5. Don't provide care. Politically unbelievable
6. use "robots" remotely operated from abroad: could work, but probably more expensive in the long run than using real robots, and not noticeably more "good".
7. increase working hours, reduce holidays, and so on. Its happening but is politically unpopular and I'd prefer holidays now and a robot to wipe my arse later than no holidays and some overworked minimum wage person who couldn't find a better way to avoid benefits sanctions.
8. Find a way to stop wasting the potential of unemployed, underemployed, and inefficiently employed people (car wash attendants, a lot of warehouse hands, and anyone else who's doing machine's work) and so get more useful work without making anyone's lives worse or adding more workers. This is the only one that's a good idea and politically realistic, but no government in the western world has been able to solve that problem for decades and the solution found in the east block was so badly implemented it made the problem worse.
Which do you prefer?
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Monday 28th October 2019 15:59 GMT Anonymous Coward
I'm in favour...
as one of the people who will be over 75 in 2040 (assuming I last that long) I would rather be at home with a reliable, capable robot than potentially sharing my house with a carousel of minimum-wage strangers/carers who I will feel guilty for imposing on and may be vulnerable to abuse from.
The slight fly in the ointment that I can't shake is that somehow a mass-produced robot which is robust enough yet gentle enough to care for me in my crusty years and sufficiently sophisticated not to stick my hand in the toaster rather than a slice of bread will be cost-effective to buy, repair as necessary and keep up to date in a domestiv environment compared to previously mentioned minimum-wage slaves. Or will I just be swapping the carers for a carousel of minimum-wage robot engineer operatives who know how to swap a motherboard in between beating me to find out where my money is hidden?
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Monday 28th October 2019 16:02 GMT SVV
growing our status as a global science superpower
Even by the usual laughable standards of these sort of announcements, this one was utterly embarassing. Why do I need an "automated personal shopper" when I can order stuff online and have it delivered to my door today? Did someone imagine a droid trundling off down the street for a couple of miles, going to a supermarket, and trundling back again laden with carrier bags? How did that get past the "instant rejection" phase? Why do they need to have a robot to compare mortgage deals when I can do it right now on my phone using a website? Why do the over 75s need to look up mortgage deals anyway?
Even when they develop the droid that can put a ready meal in the microwave and deliver it (a fairly easy task), how depressing a life would this be? The point of a lot of care work isn't that a machine couldn't do it, but the fact the person being cared for finds the human contact they get to be the high point of their day.
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Monday 28th October 2019 19:06 GMT katrinab
Re: growing our status as a global science superpower
Ah, but you need a robot to tap your Ocado order into the computer. Preferably one built on the incorrect assumption that everything you buy from Ocado gets stored in your fridge.
You of course also need a robot to help you with your cooking, by doing the easy bit, which is switching the oven on and off, and not the more difficult bits, which is everything else.
And how would you like to be able to turn your washing machine on, and off, from your sofa. You won't be able to dirty clothes into it, or take clean ones out, but you will be able to press the on button.
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Monday 28th October 2019 17:50 GMT Chris G
Think of the fogeys
As someone approaching that threshold and one that will be in his nineties after 2040, I would suggest to Chris Skidmark that he can take his robots and insert them.
Many, many old people are already lonely and often feel unwanted and bypassed by society.
Leaving them with a giant furby for the rest of their days will really make them feel so much better.
Fortunately for me, I am a qualified roboticist so I may be able to get the thing to attack the next care administrator who thinks robots would make good companions for fogies.
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Monday 28th October 2019 16:22 GMT Anonymous Coward
"demonstrate principles like respect, fairness and equality"
It's called programming for the love of dog. You programme it how you want it to work or have they been smoking the wacky AI baccy?
Translation of government intentions: We don't want to have to pay staff to look after poor old people so to save money we are going to try and use robots. Next up government retirement camps where pensioners get to do worthwhile stimulating (unpaid) work.
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Monday 28th October 2019 17:10 GMT Anonymous Coward
Your kids will be glad
if it comes to changing nappies, I would prefer a quick bullet to the head, or a thick pillow at least. Or CO. They might have got my mind transferred to a (silent, no doubt) storage by then. As long as they upload my ever-growing porn collection too, I might sign the consent form, why not...
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Monday 28th October 2019 18:05 GMT Venerable and Fragrant Wind of Change
Why Government?
Industry is doing a fine job of providing us with assistance robots. For example, the roomba when you find you can no longer use a conventional hoover. Not to mention all kinds of sensory and mobility aids, from the walking stick to the sophisticated rig Prof Hawking. had for extreme physical disability. Given that there is a market, I expect the range and sophistication of such robots to grow rapidly - and the best of them will revolutionise aspects of ageing.
The private sector produces assistance that people actually want. Government's track record tends to be the opposite: spend taxpayers' money on projects that go nowhere and produce nothing of use. Even when it comes to long-established technology they can't organise it: the NHS promised my late mother a wheelchair, but it never turned up.
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Tuesday 29th October 2019 00:02 GMT Venerable and Fragrant Wind of Change
Re: Why Government?
Up to a point, Lord Copper. Especially when your space/clutter ratio is low.
But when both my parents became too weak to use a vacuum cleaner for more than a couple of minutes, getting them a roomba was a real godsend. In what was a relatively-tidy house, clearing a floor for it wasn't a problem, and it did such a great job I couldn't resist getting one for myself, too.
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Monday 28th October 2019 18:22 GMT colinb
i'll take the Robots any day
The mother of a friend of mine is going through dementia but has care in her home, initially private now council.
They installed a hoist to help the carers get her out of bed.
Each time he visits it appears to be relegated to a towel rail and looks unused, his mother is basically left in bed full time. The foreign carers don't speak much English so conversations don't happen either.
Relying on humans in your old age? Good luck with that.
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Monday 28th October 2019 19:39 GMT Ken Moorhouse
The Art of Programming Robots
Most coders can produce code to do a specific task.
One of the necessary skills to transform that code into production comes with dealing with the burgeoning combination of error conditions that could occur. In some cases however, the programmer really does have to give up on the "what if's" and simply try to shut-down. I say "try to", in some cases the encountered stimulus might interfere with even that. We've all come across the pc that boots into Windows, encounters an error, shuts down, then boots up again, ad infinitum. $Deity forbid anyone to program robots like that, particularly if these things are allowed to roam the environment unsupervised. One of my (late) clients had a bed which automatically flex his legs periodically throughout the night to presumably maintain good circulation. One wonders how robust the timing mechanism is, and what state it would leave the bed (and hence the patient) in, should a failure occur.
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Tuesday 29th October 2019 02:38 GMT sbt
Two legs good, four wheels bad
Sod this human farming lark for a joke. If I can't do for meself, I'm out. A quick one-way trip to Switzerland beckons, if necessary.
The moment I'm forced to have a listening/recording unit in my home to monitor me (never mind assist me), that's the moment to get out with a bit a grace and dignity.
Mine's the shroud with no pockets. -->
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Tuesday 29th October 2019 08:27 GMT Mike 137
"[...] autonomous care for elderly research"
Is that research that's been superseded by subsequent discoveries (whereupon it would hardly need care any more), or was there an 'ers' left off by accident? If so, why should such a small sector of the population be preferentially provided for in this way?