wired.com — Looking ahead at the second half of this century, Toyota sees a mounting health care crisis and aging population coming to Japan. It sees a future where manufacturing robotic workers is the hot new industry and "autonomation" takes on a whole new meaning. And the first place we might see these robots is in hospitals.
Jan 20, 2010 View in Crawl 4
therangedJan 20, 2010
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hetmanJan 20, 2010
My friend is a nurse and he is one of the most incopetent people I have ever meet. He was just fired because instead of cleaning someones diaper he just left. I would prefer a robot over him. I honestly believe he has some type of learning disability yet he made it to be a nurse.
mabsarkJan 20, 2010
I want to download my mind into the internet.
mabsarkJan 20, 2010
Really now? What corporate bulls**t have you been listening to?Bakunin: "The Germans number around forty million. Will for example all forty million be member of the government?"Marx: "Certainly! Since the whole thing begins with the self-government of the commune."<a class="user" href="http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1874/04/bakunin-notes.htm" rel="nofollow">http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1874/04 ...</a>"When, in the course of development, class distinctions have disappeared, and all production has been concentrated in the hands of a vast association of the whole nation, the public power will lose its political character. Political power, properly so called, is merely the organised power of one class for oppressing another. If the proletariat during its contest with the bourgeoisie is compelled, by the force of circumstances, to organise itself as a class, if, by means of a revolution, it makes itself the ruling class, and, as such, sweeps away by force the old conditions of production, then it will, along with these conditions, have swept away the conditions for the existence of class antagonisms and of classes generally, and will thereby have abolished its own supremacy as a class."<a class="user" href="http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch02.htm" rel="nofollow">http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/co ...</a>In other words, communism is a stateless (the state being the politcal elite) and classless society, but I suppose you know better than Marx, the founder of communism.Universal assemblers will allow anyone to produce anything they want, making capitalism obsolete, thereby creating a classless society. We already have the ability to implement direct democracy using the internet, therbey creating a stateless society.Therefore, universal assemblers are quite clearly the key to communism.
yourbrokenovenJan 20, 2010
I can see them supplementing and not replacing the nursing workforce. Nursing is backbreaking work, but requires judgement that can never be programmed into a computer. I'm not so much against robots as I am just plain doubtful that I'll see AI advancements and improvements in portability and battery life of electronics sufficient enough to make them useful in the nursing workforce.Perhaps we could focus on making computer systems cheaper and more reliable. My employer recently replaced all perfectly working computers in the hospital with thin clients which freeze once or every minute or so for about 15 seconds as you're doing nothing but selecting items from dropdown menus and clicking on radio buttons, yet the IT department has been slow to take action for an entire year. There's probably nothing they can do.
phaunaJan 20, 2010
Why don't they just increase immigration? I find it completely laughable that they think building robotic nurses is a more viable choice than letting more immigrants in.
Closed AccountJan 20, 2010
Still don't like having her in the home but My sibs and I get her out when we can.After 65 it gets tough. Thanks Meth.I'm not saying that such a robot would not have its place. I was a CNA back in '95 on an Alzheimers Ward (ironic given what happened to my mom and aunt and what may happen to my other aunt and sister) and cleaning up the poop is just part of the job, and the bedpans and the poop reports (yes you had to report as the the size, colour and consistancy of the poop) and feeding and then there is the issue of being a 23 year old man washing a 104 year old woman's cha cha. These are not necessarily fun but I did not resent my residents for it. Besides it was interesting when i listened to some of the stories they had. WWII and Korea, the depression and their families. Those are the things that more CNA's need to appreciate.
gkiltzJan 21, 2010
At least they're thinking about it!Japan already has an aging population. That phenomena will spread to country after country. There simply won't be enough workers to fill all those jobs. Somehow, technology HAS to play a roll.