Nurse Robots

In the last column of Technology Today, we talked about exponential technology, artificial intelligence, and the seemingly unpredictable future of nursing.¹  This future is seen today. A quick internet search using the term nurse robot will bring up around 10 million results. Japanese and Chinese companies are leading the way by developing nurse robots for various tasks (eg, lifting patients, delivering documents).²  One of the most realistic nurse robots, Actroid-F, created in 2010 through a collaboration of 2 Japanese robotics companies, can blink, move its eyes and head, bow, smile, and talk.^2,3 

Making computers think is much easier than making computers act. This progression is contrary to what we see in normal human growth and development: infants attain physical milestones such as crawling and walking before cognitive accomplishments such as learning, reasoning, and developing ideas. With computers and, in this case, robots, high-level thinking requires...