Episode 52 - The Future Of Social Robots A New Perspective In Healthcare

Welcome. Today's topic is The Future of Social Robots: A new perspective in Healthcare.

Have you heard of social robots? They're an autonomous robot designed to interact with humans and other robots in a way that's socially acceptable. God forbid we have any awkward robots here. They convey their intentions in a way that's understandable to us humans, and they've even empowered to work together to help their fellow teammate robots, whether they're human or a robot.

To make these interactions work smoothly, social robots need to have a few key qualities. For one thing, they need to be able to move and operate in the real world, so they're not just stuck in a lab or put in a closet somewhere. They also need to be able to react quickly to unexpected situations that might come up.

Of course, they need to be really good at figuring out how to achieve their goals in social situations, whether they're working with humans or other robots. Overall, it's pretty cool to think about how researchers in the technology sector are advancing to the point where robots can engage, interact, communicate, and collaborate with us and each and other.

Who knows what amazing things we'll be able to achieve together. Research robots and computer science. Hey, did you know that robots are becoming more and more helpful? They've been assisting humans with difficult tasks like exploring space in deep oceans for years, but now a new generation of robots is being designed to support us right here in the home.

Imagine this in the near future. Robots could help take care of elderly folks who live alone. They could remind them to take their medicine, read them books, and even provide emotional support. Humans are social beings by nature. Social robots provide a way to decrease loneliness in older adults and even children.

And with the world's aging population growing rapidly, healthcare services are feeling the strain. That's where these robots come in handy. They could help elderly folks live independently for longer and provide much needed assistance to overworked care workers. So let's get ready for the robot revolution.

It's going to make life a little bit easier for everyone or will it? Seniors want to age in place. In today's society, most older adults aim to age in place in their own environments and familiar surroundings. With support of their family members, many are able to delay or avoid an admission to a nursing home, but cognitive, physical, emotional, social, and other relational changes may prevent them from doing so.

Researchers are exploring assistive technologies that supply cognitive function in memory and the physical functions such as mobility issues and balance. Did you know that robots can help older adults age in place? They can assist with everything from hobbies and social communication to learning new skills.

Social robots even provide social functions, allowing for interactions between humans and machines. Companion robots like Perro. Perro is the first robot, a social robot designed for providing companionship. Nursing homes are using this sweet social robot to improve psychological status and overall wellbeing while reducing stress and feelings of loneliness in older adults. Robotic pets provide emotional companionship for older adults and has been a blessing to those pet lovers with dementia.

These cute social robots encourage seniors to engage with the pet, and this is a robot capable of evoking warm emotions, and a sense of comfort to many seniors. What is a telepresence robot? Telepresence robots are a type of social robot that allows the users to be virtually present in a space.

They use cameras, sensors, and software to enable remote control over their movements. Telepresence robots can help healthcare professionals provide better patient care by allowing them to be present with patients remotely. The technology also helps bridge the physical distance between healthcare professionals and patients, thus enabling communication and collaboration even when they're not in the same room.

Telepresence robots have been used in healthcare settings to monitor patients' vitals, provide consultation with medical specialists located far away, and assist nurses with their daily task. There are surgeons that use these type of autonomous systems to perform surgeries in other parts of the world.

Yes, the surgeon may be in Boston mass at Mass General performing surgery on someone in another country. This allows specialists, very unique specialists to use technology of robotics to provide services to those in need in other countries. Use cases for social robots. Another use of telepresence robots keeps olders connected to loved ones and resources promoting independent living. The best part, using robots for enriching activities can boost mood, decrease loneliness, decrease stress and increase social interactions. By incorporating robots into their home, older adults can stay engaged in hobbies and activities they love promoting healthy aging. This technology helps long distance caregivers monitor their loved one's activity levels and have regular social interaction with family members. Seniors are playing games with their grandkids.

It helps reduce stress as a long distance family caregiver can see their aging loved one's facial expressions, monitor their daily activities, and observe their aging loved one's behavior through regular and ongoing communications. Social robots can assist healthcare professionals by monitoring patient's vitals remotely, or providing medical assistance in remote locations as I mentioned earlier. Overall, social robots are a promising technology that can revolutionize the way healthcare is provided. They offer many benefits such as improved patient care, increased collaboration between healthcare professionals and increased efficiency in providing care Overall, social robots provide a new perspective on healthcare and can revolutionize the way healthcare services are delivered.

With their advanced technology, such as voice recognition, artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms and computing machinery, social robots can interact with people in a more natural and human-like way. Oh my Lord. And that makes me, there's a lot of stuff to do to get a robot to interact in a more natural and humanlike way.

Natural language processing and speech recognition capabilities can also enable more human-like interactions with patients. This is important as we have so many seniors that have become hard of hearing or difficult understanding a different accent than they are used to hearing. The future of social robots will allow a family to use personal settings and address the various aspects of a person's life. As I said before, I would like to have a person centered profile on each family member logged into the computer. Human robot interaction will increase as these social machines become more person specific. Human expectations demand an individualized approach and a type of human interaction experience.

Robotic systems are being developed to aid older adults in routine activities such as cleaning. We all love our Roomba, picking up or retrieving objects. My dog does that. I don't have a robot for that. Getting in and out of bed. Meals and mobility in contrast, relatively little attention in robotics or relatively little attention in robotics or artificial intelligence AI, has been given to the social, emotional, and relational aspects of an older adult's lives. We envision intelligent social technologies for the home that not only help older adults with daily activities and difficulties and health problems, but also contribute to the emotional wellness via social engagement.

We have a caregiver crisis. As baby boomers age, the projected shortage of trained personnel and facilities such as nursing homes are going to be challenged to meet the growing demand over the next few decades because we're at critical mass. Introducing social robots that use social cues and interact with users in interpersonal ways as a means to reduce older adult social isolation by fostering face-to-face connectedness with family, friends, staff, doctors, and other professionals.

So I wanna introduce you to Buddy and Astro. Two innovative robots designed to enhance independent living and aid in postoperative recovery. Buddy is a cute, medium-sized dog-like robot that can assist with daily tasks, such as scheduling appointments, offering cognitive stimulation and video data allows patrolling for the home for security.

Astro is a tall social humanoid robot that could be used as a walking aid and guide users through prescribed exercises. In developing these robots, researchers in A C R A work directly with elderly individuals and their caregivers to ensure that their needs and expectations were met.

Participants noted that the emotional and cognitive interactions with Buddy, the dog robot were crucial in promoting wellbeing and the Robots Developers plan to continue improving these aspects with further support and feedback from family caregivers and their loved ones. While developing robots that can interact with humans on a level comparable to other robots may be too costly and time consuming.

Buddy and Astro offer significant benefits for those seeking more independent living and improved mobility. By co-creating robots with users and managing human expectations, researchers hope to continue advancing the capabilities of these technologies.

 Now, let me introduce you to Pepper and Cosmos Social robots. According to Emily Cross, a professor of social robotics in the University of Glasgow, these robots do not necessarily need to look and act humanlike to be appealing to humans.

In fact, her social Robots project discovered that a toy robot called Cosmo can have much more of an impact on social cognition in children and adults than the more expensive and human like pepper.

The project also found that how someone is introduced to the robot has just as much impact as its appearance and abilities. This understanding of human robot interaction is vital, especially for countries with aging populations who need affordable and effective social robots on the market. The good news is that in the next decade, we'll bring a new generation of robots that will extend older people's ability to live independently longer. Now, let me introduce you to Fur Hat by Fur Hat Robotics.

Fur Hat Robotics is on a mission to create a robot that people could interact with as easily as they would another human. Meet Fur Hat, the first robot on the market with a back projected face. I thought, what the heck does that mean a back projected face robots are a type of social robot that uses projected images on a screen to create a realistic human digital avatar.

The computer vision of these robots use sophisticated computer algorithms to accurately mimic facial expressions, gestures, and body language in order to facilitate more natural interactions with their human counterparts. What makes this so special?

The projector allows you to change the robot's, skin color, makeup, and even facial features at the click of a button. And because of the way it's designed, fur hats movements are incredibly smooth and natural looking. So you won't get that creepy, almost human-like effect. But that's not all, Fur Hat is a social robot designed to participate in conversations just like a human would.

With nods and other natural gestures, it is able to interact in a variety of different social situations with an easy type of human interactive communication system. Human beings introduced to fur hat.

 Fur hat is also equipped with the latest speech recognition and automatic lip sync technology and artificial intelligence so it can converse in over 40 languages. And with fur hat, the opportunities to create human-like robots with expressive characters are limitless. Social robots are the way of the future.

The fur hat Robotics Company is focusing on becoming the leading social robots company in the world. We shall see. Now I wanna introduce you to Misty. Meet Misty, the new programmable mobile social robot from Misty Robotics, recently acquired by Fur Hat.

Misty has already made waves performing temperature screenings in work bases and healthcare settings, but that's just the beginning. Researchers are now touting Misty as a valuable tool for communicating with people who have autism and Alzheimer's.

What's really cool about humanoid robots like Misty is how expressive she is using her eyes and sounds. She can express a wide range of facial expressions and emotions from joy to sadness. And her head, neck, and arms all move so she can communicate curiosity or excitement.

Misty has touch sensors and responds to touch and can recognize and remember people. Plus she's powered by the top of the line artificial intelligence capable of detecting 80 different types of objects. Interacting with Misty. A person can make eye contact and Misty will respond with the appropriate emotions.

Misty is one very social robot. So let's talk about the human robot interaction. Human robot interaction is a give and take, and both parties, humans and robots need to learn from each other. Scientists studying this field typically focus on how robots can understand human intentions, but it's essential for humans to understand robotic behavior as well.

Researchers from M I T and Harvard University have collaborated to apply established theories of human concept learning to advanced robot human interaction. They examined prior studies on human beings teaching robots new behaviors, and found that two cognitive science theories could have improved the mythologies used.

By incorporating elements and the variation theory of learning, humans can form mental models of robots quicker and more accurately.

Better understanding of a robot's behavior can lead to greater cooperation and safer collaboration in high stakes industries such as healthcare and manufacturing. Researchers have learned that human expectations of robots is based on various experiences, for instance. It is essential to show humans both positive and negative examples of a robot performing a task to build an accurate mental model of the robot.

Furthermore, if a robot's design resembles a human but moves differently, it can confuse people and make a challenging to learn to interact with that robot. In conclusion, scientists must use everything at their disposal to help humans build the most accurate mental models of robots possible as inaccurate models could put people in harm's way. Regular, everyday humans can assist researchers to design more effective robot experiments and improve the physical robot design. Can we make robots more accessible?

Have you ever wondered how we can make robots more accessible to regular people? By utilizing imitation learning, artificial intelligence and computer modeling, we can improve the relationship between humans and robots. This will enable robots to adapt to new users and tasks, making them more efficient and effective, and helping us solve everyday problems.

To achieve this goal, there are three areas of research we need to consider: cognitive, emotion and perception and hardware. By focusing on how humans process information, how we share and interpret information, and learn to trust and by building better hardware, we can ensure that humans and robots can work together seamlessly. Think about how the personal computer revolutionized the way we work and play. Now, society stands at the brink of another revolution one where robust will change the way we live and think, whether it's a surgeon performing surgery remotely or a stroke victim inspecting their garden using flying machines such as drones.

For a person with dementia, using a robot to find a lost item, we can harness the power of robotics to help make our lives easier and more productive. I'm looking forward to learning all about robots and caregiving. This has been brought to you by Caregiver Relief. I'm Diane Carbo. Rn.

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