Will Robots Ever Replace Human Caregivers?

Artificial Humans?

A recent story from the University of Pennsylvania on robots becoming more human reminded me of my Ph.D. dissertation work about 12-16 years ago. The power of the human brain lies in its ability to reason through incomplete, uncertain information, and the ability to learn, re-learn and generalize.

In Japan, a new body called the Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization is planning to launch a five-year project this month to improve safety standards for next-generation robo-nurses, which the country hopes will help alleviate a shortage of caregivers for elderly.

“As aging of the population is a common problem for developed countries, Japan wants to become an advanced country in the area of addressing the aging society with the use of robots,” Motoki Korenaga, a ministry of trade and industry official, told the AFP.

While these robots can be programmed to perform various tasks, such as administering medicine and checking vital signs, it is still unclear if these machine can truly handle the unpredictable situations that occur.

In my experience, fuzzy logic offers some tools to help handle uncertainity and incomplete information, but the human being, particularly the human brain, is a wonderful creation that is not likely to be meaningfully emulated artificially.