Unleashing the power of connection: The rise of socially assistive robots
Using therapeutic robots for mental health support is a vital area for robotics development in the field of health and wellbeing. “In 2021, an estimated 3.9% of the world’s general population suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD),” said Cindy L. Bethel, Professor at Mississippi State University.
A robot that can help people dealing with PTSD is Therabot – a beagle-like adaptive therapeutic support robot that “brings healing to those exposed to traumatic situations.”
While talking about Therabot, she emphasized that “its ultimate goal is to breach the gap between two types of effective therapy using real animals and their plush counterparts to for emotional assistance.”
“Therabot provides the benefit of animal assisting therapy through robotic platform,” believes Cindy L. Bethel, Professor at Mississippi State University.
“Spot can sense and detect environment around it and able to walk over obstacles. Over 1000 such robots are deployed in the world: at manufactures, plants, power stations, but most importantly in the field of public safety,” said Brendan Schulman, Vice President of Policy & Government Relations at Boston Dynamics.
With exceptional flexibility and advanced autonomy, deploying Spot can facilitate the automation of mundane tasks, enable data capture, and augment the capabilities of the workforce.
“Such capabilities do raise concerns,” agreed Schulman. “These doubts are especially supported by science fiction… That is why it is so important to have discussions with policymakers about AI ethics.”
Humanoid robots also have the capacity to assist in healthcare.
“We develop humanoid robots because their features help people connect with them, we understand this form, its emotions and gestures,” said Will Jackson, CEO and Founder at Engineered Arts.
“The ultimate goal for many robotic companies is to create a general-purpose robot – one that can do what a human does,” continued Jackson. Unfortunately, people are still far from this point. Nevertheless, the humanity has already achieved a lot in robotics which can be proved by Ameca – one of the world’s most advanced human-shaped robot, with a realistic appearance and lifelike movements.
Ben Goertzel, CEO and Founder at SingularityNET agreed that with AI being developed at a rapid pace, more and more concerns are arising.
“Who controls and owns the AI? The only way to establish the AI development for good is to collaborate with various people and establish decentralized ownership,” believes Ben Goertzel, CEO and Founder at SingularityNET.
“Another question is what AI does? In our case we work in healthcare field, which made us to create Grace.”
Grace is specifically designed to provide assistance and companionship to elderly individuals and people with disabilities.
