Emotional Support Robot

Meet Robin, "an artificial intelligence-powered therapeutic robot programmed to act like a little girl as it provides emotional support at nursing homes and hospital pediatric units while helping combat staffing shortages."

Robot Works to Combat Fear and Loneliness

It/she speaks in the voice of a seven-year-old girl. Her "sleek white triangle-shaped frame" is "designed for hugging." Her "cartoonlike" features put on silly faces or sympathetic expressions as the social context requires. She plays music and games with patients. Unlike most human staff members, she has perfect memory of every person she's previously met.

Here's a page about Robin from her manufacturer, headed "Your Compassionate Teammate," featuring capsule summaries of Robin's functions and abilities, as well as a bunch of video clips:

Meet Robin

News stories about social media chatbots warn of the potential harm their uncontrolled use by tweens and teenagers may unleash. Lonely young people may confide in AI "friends" to the exclusion of live interaction, and chatbots have been known to feed into depressed kids' dark, even suicidal moods. Fortunately, Robin doesn't pose any such danger, being only about 30% autonomous, otherwise controlled by remote operators under the supervision of clinical staff. Long-term plans, however, envision Robin's having the capacity for a wider range of functions, such as taking vital signs and even helping nursing home residents with activities of daily life. The aim isn't replacing human health care staff but "filling in the gaps in the workforce." If Robin grows to fulfill her makers' goal "to take more and more responsibilities," she'll necessarily become more autonomous. What might she evolve into?

I'm reminded of Ray Bradbury's story "I Sing the Body Electric," about a robot grandmother. A synopsis and analysis of it:

I Sing the Body Electric

While the thoroughly anthropomorphic grandmother makes it clear that she's "only a machine," yet she embodies the thoughts and feelings of the many people who contributed to her creation. Robin's personality, too, according to her creator, was shaped "by really taking users into the equation"; in a sense "Robin was designed by users.”

Margaret L. Carter

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