Technological innovation in the world of robotics took a new turn last month as Japanese robotics company Kokoro unveiled a startlingly lifelike robotic nurse, the Actroid-F. Apparently, it can speak and make some appropriate facial expressions while it sits by your hospital bed “comforting” you in your hour of need…
The robotic nurse works is controlled by an operator who makes facial expressions in front a computer screen and the Actroid-F nurse instantaneously “mimics” them. The odd thing about this is that if each robot requires a distant operator, it doesn’t leave much room for staff “downsizing” – it simply removes real nurses and replaces them with robotic dummies and remote operators…
Or is Kokoro planning to offer labour savings by linking a single operator to several dozen robots, who would presumably then all say the same thing at the same time and simultaneously make the same gestures.
Good for hospital discipline, I suppose, regimenting the patients with precision timed statements, questions and gestures, but what about the “heart” or “soul” of the matter, eh, Kokoro?
David Hurley
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