So wrong: Japan’s hope for the tech-enabled and robotic aging life

Remember the Cyberdine demo of HAL at ASA some years ago? The Hybrid Assistive Limb (HAL) was designed by a venture firm in Japan to help a wheelchair-bound individual stand and move. It was very cool. It was priced at that time (2009) at around $5000. By 2014, the device could be rented for the equivalent of $1400/month. And now it has again been modified. This time, according to the WSJ article about Japanese demographics, the country needs its older laborers to work substantially longer. So a 67-year-old worker in the construction industry can stack wood just like someone half his age. Yay. And then there is the charming Pepper robot, selling for an equivalent of $1600, leading recreational activities in senior housing, charming the residents. In Japan, 13% of the population is 75+, and in another statistic, 15% of the 'elderly' population has dementia. 

Just like swooning over self-driving cars, will robotic caregiving become a US fad?  Let us hope not – can't we seek and find workers who can provide human interaction? This seems to be something that seems out of reach in Japan. We have had plenty of hints about the role of robotics in US caregiving – between Paro, Jibo, GeriJoy.  And we all love the advances in technology – no doubt CES will be overrun with robots, self-driving cars, and drones.  But this is just like swooning over those crashing self-driving cars --humans cause those crashes, don’t you know? And like the cars, which can’t seem to guarantee that all humans are off the road and thus not in their way, the robotic caregivers bring all sort of scenario analysis opportunities. I guarantee that no one will do that analysis until a disaster happens, where else but in a dementia unit in an assisted living community.

Pepper is on the premises, leading activities.  A scenario that is not imaginary: We’re in a locked memory care unit and it is Saturday. At the moment, no supervisor is nearby. One of the male residents peers into the face of a female and begins yelling at her. Let’s add Pepper the robot, who is leading a song that everyone loves. But Pepper isn’t skilled at conflict resolution, does not change behavior and simply continues singing. Another resident is sobbing, a third has had a toileting accident. What is the priced-under-$2000 Pepper to do? Is human error (as with the cars) to blame if Pepper doesn't do the right thing? Or will the technology be blamed. In this case, what will the family member of the sobbing resident, for example, do when told by an observer that Pepper was there, a so-called Caregiver robot, but became confused and didn’t intervene when the male resident punched the crying female resident in the face? What organization will sign up for the liability of deploying a less-than-trained robot with the elderly?

The news media loves stories about caregiver robot possibilities. But of course, they don't like to write about the reality. Who keeps Paro the seal clean enough for the elderly to pass it from hands to dirty hands? Who makes sure that robotic devices are properly charged and operational? Or has someone invented another task for the overworked humans working in senior housing? And as for the home-bound elderly, is this better than a Skype call from a professional or family caregiver?  Someone who guides a camera around the home setting and determines that an emergency is about to or has happened?  Is it really necessary (or true) that everyone who could help provide care to older adults will have opted out or disappeared by 2050, including the Japanese who could recruit workers outside of Japan? In the meantime, there is at least one reason why the home care industry (the one that sends real people to the home) is booming. Paro, Pepper, Jibo, GeriJoy – all together, they just can’t get the job done.