Signed up for Obamacare, yet, master...?
Posted on 12/13/2014 12:04:11 PM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
The federal government is financing the creation of robots that can assist the elderly and make sure they are eating healthily.
A nearly $800,000 project from the National Science Foundation (NSF) is pairing the University of Pennsylvania with a robot company to create the machines, which will be able to deliver glasses of water to senior citizens.
The government said that the project is necessary due to a demographic crisis in America where soon there will not be enough young people to take care of their elders.
“This Partnership For Innovation project develops and tests the use of service robots to monitor and improve health of the elderly,” the grant for the project, awarded in August, states. “The growing elderly population coupled with low birth rates in the developed world is creating a crisis in healthcare. The number of senior citizens is outgrowing the number of working-age adults to care for them.”
“In the U.S. alone, the number of seniors over age 65 is projected to double from year 2000 to 2030, reaching 71.5 million,” it continued. “With the scarcity of care options available, affordable robots are a welcome solution for assisting elders with small tasks that would normally be done by a caregiver.”
Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania, led by Mark Yim, a professor in the Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics (MEAM) department, are joining with Savioke, a California-based company that is building robots for the services industry.
The robot developed by the NSF project will be able to perform a “limited set of elder-relevant manipulation tasks,” including “picking up dropped items or filling a water glass.” The machine will also be used for data collection on seniors’ health.
“This mobile manipulator robot will be used to perform service tasks, such as delivering water to elders,” the grant said. “The data gathered by these robots and how elders use them in the field will provide information about how robots can help create a larger data-driven health monitoring system.”
“While helping elders with activities of daily living in an elder care facility, the system learns about them,” it added. “It can then do things such as help ensure that they are eating or drinking healthily.”
The project, which is expected to continue until 2017 and has cost $799,860 so far, is building off of Savioke’s robots, including the recently released “SaviOne.”
SaviOne provides room service to guests at an Aloft hotel in Cupertino, Calif. The machine looks like a moving trash can with an iPad on top, and makes beep noises to sound like a robot.
The company calls SaviOne its “robot butler,” and encourages people to take selfies with it, like this hotel guest, who was disappointed after paying $300 a night only to find the robot out of order.
The University of Pennsylvania is currently working on adding a “prismatic joint arm” to Savioke’s robots.
“We are passionate about delivering easy-to-use yet sophisticated robots that can help people,” the company says on its website.
Savioke believes that personal robots can help people to “achieve their potential,” and wants them “anywhere people sleep or eat.”
“Over time, personal robots will help people to achieve their potential, enhancing our strengths, overcoming our weaknesses, and endowing us with new capabilities we are just beginning to imagine,” they said. “We are inspired by people who use technology to overcome disabilities, and we believe that robots have the potential to make all of our lives better.”
Savioke’s CEO, Steve Cousins, formerly was president of Willow Garage, a robot company that helped found the Robots for Humanity initiative. Robots for Humanity was successful in helping Henry Evans, who suffered a debilitating stoke at 40 years old leaving him mute and quadriplegic.
“It took me several years, but with the help of an incredibly supportive family I finally decided life was still worth living,” Evans told an audience in a lecture 3,000 miles away in Washington, D.C., from his bed in California. “I became fascinated with using technology to help the severely disabled.”
Through robotic technology, Evans is now able to communicate, shave, open his refrigerator, and fly drones, only with the movement of his head.
A Japanese company has already developed robots that are used as companions for the elderly. “Paro,” is designed to resemble a baby harp seal, and elderly residents at a California retirement community mistook the robot for an animal.
The NSF is also investing in machines for children, committing $10 million to build robots that will act as kids’ “personal trainers,” in an effort to influence their behavior and eating habits.
I Robot Demographic Winter Nanny State PING!
Signed up for Obamacare, yet, master...?
They make it impossible for college kids to flirt.
Then they make it impossible for young professionals to flirt.
They make it impossible for young military people to flirt.
Then there’s a demographic implosion.
Then the leaders are all HUGELY surprised.
Reminds me of this clip from the sci-fi movie, “Elysium.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzGzf0S0WqI
I’m elderly and I’d rather crawl than have a robot help me out.
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‘
The robots will be equipped with 20kw lasers.
Sari!! Jack daniels please ....... two fingers
In my special glass!
Picture it....old folks locked in cages in assisted living facilities, being cared for by robots.
I suspect that we’ll find Roe v. Wade had a lot to do with it, too.
The robots will be programmed to kill. It will be a back door death panel. Once a person reaches 75, the robot “servant” will kill it’s master.
And the best part is that the robots will also vote for their seniors. Of course, they’ll only be capable of casting ballots for Democrats!
the robot will look like Michelle O....and it will stuff inedible “healthy food” (Soylent Green) down your throat when you get old, whether you like it or not
if you refuse, it will gag you instantly
thus saving the Obamacare Death Committee need of holding any meeting in your case
“...due to a demographic crisis in America where soon there will not be enough young people to take care of their elders.”
That’s only the Liberals. They’re busy aborting their future caregivers.
Seriously, none of this is going to end well. We truly ARE going to be a Nation Divided. And I don’t care WHAT that Red/Blue map shows. We’re all screwed.
However, if Uncle Sam wants to give me a Cabana Boy to tend to my bunions in my Golden Years, I’m all over THAT, LOL!
Old people will not be a problem.
When the system collapses, the feral Democrats will murder those who can’t fight back in the course of looting. It won’t be newsworthy, because they will mostly be old white people.
Whether they want to or not.
I’m with you-I’ll disappear and never be found first. The robots probably wouldn’t be much different from the caregivers at the assisted living cages now...
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