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points by seanmcdirmid 1 day ago | 0 comments

Wait, you haven’t been reading the news for the last 3 decades? Chores for sure, but even componaionship has been on the table (Aibo was oriented at that very thing, and that was late 1990s, I think). Or are you just being very American centric?

[–] fugalfervor 17 hours ago

I am saying that people don't want elder care and community automated away. Businesses surely do. The elderly surely do not.

[–] seanmcdirmid 16 hours ago

So you are going for a slippery slope or straw man rather than a spectrum right? Automation is useful is very different from we can lock old people in robot communities (well, to be fair, it’s not very far from how we treat the problem today with nursing homes).

[–] fugalfervor 9 hours ago

Not really. I'm thinking that robots have limited capactiy to help with community, maintaining mental acuity, and strength training which as I understand it are the three most predictive factors in quality-of-life outcomes for the elderly.

I'm not saying that robots can't help care for them, but rather that the proposed uses of robotics are optimizing for problems that are ultimately not the most important problems to those nearing death.