Care Robots

To the question "Are you crazy? Why would you want a cold robot instead of a real person, to care for you?!", I respond with the question "Are you willing to devote your life to my well being, to care for me 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, for free, without complaining?".

I need two robots actually. One that cares for me, but as being cared for isn't the only thing I want to achieve in my life, I need a second one to get other things done.

With a healthy body, you can take care of yourself and do so many other things on this world by moving your body around. If parts of your body become troublesome, you need more time to care for yourself, sometimes with some help from others. But when almost completely paralyzed, you will simply die when not getting a lot of support. I often long to the end of my paralyzed life. I don't want to die, but I'm tired-sick of suffering. Accepting the suffering as being part of how things are now, makes it more bearable, but never pleasant. I'm thankful for all the people that help me, but I'd rather be much more independent if I could. Until my spinal cord injury is repaired, to live kind of a normal life, I need exelent care 24/7, but instead the best I may get is expensive non-totally-devoted help at parts of the day.

I can already hear the people who help me, kind of angry say "so, you don't like me, think I'm not good enough, while I'm doing the best I can. Well, thanks -not, and goodbye". Again: there isn't enough budget to pay you 24/7. You can't and don't want to devote your life to my well being. The first practical care robots (2015?) can assist a little bit here and there, do simple but helpful jobs, nothing complex with responsibilities, they're all experimental. More advanced robots (2030?) can do surprisingly much, but will still not replace human help, not completely anyhow. So don't worry about your job and how you are appreciated -if you're a kind person. By the time these robots are practical, you're old and might need one to.

Of course would it be so much better to repair the spinal cord injury, that would solve so incredibly many problems at once, but when will that become possible? I don't know. It wouldn't surprise me if the evolution of robotics outrun the progress in medical bio-technology. The best would be both: a repair of the spinal cord, and a robot that can assist 24/7 during rehabilitation.

In most care situations I of course do prefer the company of a real human. Someone pleasant who's: smart, handy, energetic, helpful, relaxed, available, efficient. Problems are:
- Only very few people fit this demanding profile.
- There's not enough budget to pay someone 24/7.
- 24/7 care can't reasonably come from one person, so at least 3 perfect people I need.
- I don't like being cared for. I want to care for myself, be much more independent.
- I'm not that a likable guy. Many of my help's main motivation is money. Luckily in my situation do we choose to work together (thanks to the PGB budget in the Netherlands). How would my situation change if their was no budget? My family is small, they can't carry my care.


Not human, but very welcome when no human help is available.
A robot will probably not have a pleasant warm & funny character, but it could give quality care 24/7. I'm not taking about the robots of 2008, which are so dumb I don't even trust them for cleaning the floor. The robots that will come (if the modern world doesn't collaps) will be amazing, of a level no one has ever seen on this planet, except for in SF movies. They might even get pleasant characters, or slightly unpleasant if that's what you like.
Care robots should be in addition to human care. A robot can learn from human examples, and give care when no human help is available, which is most of the time. There are places where there's 24/7 care around, but that most often is shared-care. Having a for example 4 people who help 30 people, meaning you can get some care "when necessary", at the right time if you're lucky. And how cool is it to live together with just other physical handicapped people and professional care givers? I much rather be a freaky but independent part of "normal" life.
Good professional human care is very hard to find and organize, and 24/7 is incredible expensive. I could never buy that myself. If I could get good care robot 24/7, that would dramatically improve the quality of my live.


Pros and Cons
A robot isn't equal to a human, so they should not be compared. Robots can't equally replace humans and humans can't equally replace robots. Both have pros and cons.
People who are very depending on the help of other people know the pros and cons of people. Here are some of the care robots's:

Care Robots Pros:
+ Available 24/7
+ Come installed with the experience of many.
+ Can learn how to serve you best.
+ Share tip & tricks with other bots (install after permission)
+ Have no objections (unless it would harm you).
+ When broken, a new one can install the backed-up experiences.
+ Are connected to the internet and all, so you can do some work while being cared for.
+ Can drive a car, boot, aircraft (although by that time most vehicles can drive themselves).
+ Can keep the whole household up and running.
+ You will have more time & energy and be more flexible for things other than care, like: friends, family, work, fun stuf.

Care Robots Cons:
- If robotic help is successful, then we'll get very depending on them, also on the electrical power and the whole robotic industry.
- If robotic care is less expensive than human care, the amount of human care will be reduced to reduce costs.
- Machines brake down. There need to be a backup available at all times for both data and hardware. If there's no backup available, that can be terrible.
- The energy bill will be higher.
- At first, the company of a robot will feel weird perhaps even a little scarry. But well; when I with my head controlled wheelchair visit "the outside world" now in 2009, many people stare at me anyhow "OMG, look at that".
- Robotic company might be better than no or bad company, but a robot isn't a warm living person. It can feel cold and lonely. But as that robot has internet, you can for example voice chat with real friends while being cared for. But again: care robots are not ment to (completely) replace people. They are tools. Would you mind if I take away your washing machine?
- Will the robots take over control? Many SF stories predict so. I don't expect that in the near future. There will be conflicts. I'm already having fights with my computer when it's acting stupid again.

Surely do care robots have many downsides, everything has two sides, but I see more positives than negatives here. All together could care robots make it possible for me to: live more healthy, more independent, more active, making life more worth while really.