Zora, the Robot Caregiver | Hacker News Reader

Zora, the Robot Caregiver

nytimes.com

40 pointsdaegloe33 comments

> "Nothing will ever replace the human touch, the human warmth our patients need"

I remember having discussions lasting several hours with my med-school (and nursing) friends when I was at the Uni. They had the same feeling. I'm still convinced that we can and prob should replace doctors (for some of their tasks) with computers as soon as possible. For instance: given a set of symptoms and some biological metrics, a computer (an expert system) could provide a much accurate and un-biased diagnosis.

I always had the idea that in the future, "doctors" would be scientists that would be researching and helping improve AI in the medical field, but the front line would be robots/computers. At least, that's the future I would like to live in ;)

That’s the root issue, isn’t it. Is a simulation of something somehow inferior to the real thing? I’m not quite so sure. In my experience, it has been machines that have provided me with a certain kind of kindness and warmth that no human could ever provide for me. A machine’s love would be unconditional.

It would only be unconditional if you could program it without if/then statements.

If the “Zora” robot looks familiar, it’s because it is a rebadged SoftBank (was Aldebaran) Nao[1] which have been around for a long time (I stopped working in robotics in 2012 and they had been around for a while then)

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nao_(robot)

> Families can visit only so much

Nothing against the robot but how do we fix the root cause of the problem? that modern lifestyles dictate leaving very little time for close family members.

Changing that won't fix the fact some families just drift apart because they're composed of individuals.

So I still see a role for those robots even in a hypothetical perfect world where nobody's ever "forced" apart.

What kind of a social/economic system makes us invest in this when there are billions of malnourished people willing to do something like this for close to free? Why is it that we focus so much on engineering when a lot of problems can potentially be solved using better social and political policies.

Well, here's one factor:

> The challenge is particularly acute in France, where hospitals have been facing a national crisis, with health care professionals striking and protesting budget cuts and staff shortages.

Minimum wage laws mean you'd have to pay them more than a one time cost of $18,000 which is the robot's price tag.

Majority of people are not engineers. Engineers focus on engineering by definition. Altrough this is primary entrepreneurs forum, many here are still engineers who kow a lot about that and did not studied sociology.

Nothing stops you from learning about other issues and becoming activist. Plenty of forums about that.

The robot itself is actually NAO from Aldebaran (now Softbank Robotics): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nao_(robot)

Zora appears to be the platform/service provider that runs on Softbank's robots.

A few startups (including mine) are trying to help with human interaction in this space:

Papa (joinpapa.com): bring college students to seniors as short term caregivers

Ayuda (ayudacare.com / I am the co-founder of this one): We connect seniors in assisted living facilities with freelancers such as musicians, fitness teachers, and more.

A VC with General Catalyst wrote a useful summary on eldercare startups: https://medium.com/@alerner_93836/disrupting-eldercare-97454...

An undermentioned issue is that a robot can provide privacy (or perhaps only the semblance of it but still). My mother has talked about in-home care and she would prefer a machine because she doesn't want someone in her home: really she doesn't want to feel dependent. It isn't demeaning to her to have a machine take care of things for her but to have a person do so would feel bad.

Machines can't do everything but people can't either.

I worry that if this succeeds and we lose the human connection to the patient there exists a slew of problems as the infirm and those with dementia aren't the best at asking for help beyond the immediate surroundings or questioning the status quo. I'm thinking wrong pills, general error handling and worst case: malicious compromise.

While its nice to see mild benefits I feel bittersweet about any successes given that I feel a better solution to this problem is more human in nature.

The piece points out one positive interaction: A patient revealed to the device/remote operator that her bruising was caused by falling out of bed. On the other hand, the dementia patient is a less reliable witness than a nannycam.

Having been in Zora's shoes for my mom I think Zora's got a long way to go, and I fear that we'll get her anyway.

It's easy to think, as long as there are an even number of lonely people in an area you can just pair them up and everybody can have companionship.

And yet, the world is full of buildings full of people, most of them lonely. Or all watching TV instead of talking to each other.

Walking into a room full of lonely people and trying to make them all feel less lonely is incredibly hard! There seems to be a shortage of people who are good at it. It therefore seems like a reasonable thing to try automating.

Wouldn't it be easier and cheaper to simply teach people how to have conversations with other people?

Social skills are just expected to develop naturally. But social grace and the ability to have a good conversation with someone are SKILLS -- they need to be learned and honed.

Before we start automating companionship, why don't we start teaching people how to communicate with other people?

Parents, schools, churches, and society have been trying for 1000s of years. So "why don't we start?" isn't the most useful question. Ask "why has this perpetually failed?"

I think in this case, skills aren't the limiting factor. Most people have them, but not sufficient motivation to overcome shyness and fear of rejection. Education can teach skills, but not give people motivation.

And have succeeded until relatively recently... technology isn’t the solution to this.

You act like these people were alone their entire lives. If we're talking about a retirement home, I'm sure it has more to do with all your friends passing in front of you.

People need to share some commonalities or worldview to communicate well especially at some depth, which is a prerequisite for long-lasting friendships.

Career specialization, accelerating changes in lifestyles across generations and groups, social stratification, and having more individual choices in media consumption likely contribute to increasing social isolation in general.

People love to have communities they connect with at a deeper level. This and the above help explain why top hi-tech centers like Silicon Valley and NYC tend to propagate themselves and even mid-tiered hubs find hard to compete with. Decisions by Google and Amazon to expand in NYC despite high cost-of-living are examples of their effects.

> It's easy to think, as long as there are an even number of lonely people in an area you can just pair them up and everybody can have companionship.

That is not how human relationships and psychology works.

It seems like an expensive toy, but good entertainment. If the cost can be brought down, it could bring joy to a lot of people's lives when they can't have pets.

(But why call it a caregiver?)

Upcoming models include Zora the Explorer and Zora, Warrior Princess.

Flippant answer aside, what this shows us is that confused, desperately lonely people will grasp at even the most unsatisfying interactions. I don't think it points to a useful direction in robotics or emotional care. (The article was fairly clear on that at the outset, but seemed to ignore its own warning as it progressed.)

When robots are advanced enough to have rights, this might be a good idea. What's next? We're spread to thin to take care of our kids so we put them in the Raiselator 3000?

This isn't healthy. The robot will never provide an adequate amount of companionship required by humans. Even children don't bond with these robotic toys. The fact that elderly people are bonding with the machine is a sign of severe loneliness and not a sign of successfully creating an android companion.

I get the problem they're trying to solve though. Currently there's already a solution in modern society that solves this issue though albeit comes with it's own inconveniences... Dogs. Get these people dogs. If dogs can lead blind people than they can take care of the elderly.

Not everyone can take care of a dog or wants to.

You even admit it ("inconveniences") yet immediately dismiss it.

Your point? Obviously not everyone can take care of a dog.

Also I admit to inconveniences, but when did I dismiss it?

If I admit to inconveniences it means I am trying to present a view that covers both the downsides and the upsides.

I'll say one thing though. I'd rather have a human develop a friendship with a dog then develop a friendship with a robot toy. One relationship is healthy and humane the other is not...

Dogs from shelters are 100000% better IMHO.

Well, not directly from shelters, but those trained to be therapy dogs (temperament requirements), definitely.

Yeah but they have a large maintenance requirement. These dementia sufferers are not the kind of folks that should own animals.

I see two problems with this: old people are fragile and training dogs is expensive.

I got a dog while my mother was in a nursing home. Additionally, my wife used to work in an assisted living facility. We would bring the dog to visit both of these, and everyone loved the visit... Except for me. It was nerve wracking. I had to keep her on a very short leash, and pay attention every second she was with an elder. In a heartbeat she can jump up or lean into someone and take them to the ground. Seniors falling is a big deal, broken bones or worse often happens.

And training a dog to be a service dog costs well into the 5 figures. I've heard $40k for a fully trained service dog, it takes around a year to do. An elder can probably be safe with something less, but I'd guess we're probably still talking $10k.

My in-laws got a dog 18 months ago and they are taking her through some of the service dog training and other training. My father in law has been out in the hospital once by the dog, and has fallen numerous times while walking her (sudden pulls or just getting mixed up in his feet).

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