At the 2012 Sundance Film Festival independent science fiction film, "robot and Frank" won the Alfred Sloan award. The film tells the story of a mild dementia occurs between robot story, story writer for the preset time is "coming in the future".

In fact, this "future" has quietly arrived.

The machine "care" skills

TOYOTA, a Japanese carmaker, recently shared a video showing its new robot. The robot, 1.22 meters tall, has a clip on arm, and a wheel base can move over a flat ground. In the video, users can use the tablet computer to control the robot to pour tea. TOYOTA called the robot "support robot", a robot dedicated to helping disabled people achieve simple living.

It is understood that, in response to the aging population, TOYOTA and other companies are committed to research and development of one of the power of robots. In 2013, the government designated 24 enterprises, 2 billion 390 million yen subsidy, to develop nursing robots, which will help elderly people move, toilet and report their whereabouts in the room. In designated companies, TOYOTA automotive develops robots that move older people. Japan's Ministry of economy, industry and industry said that in 2018, each elderly family or three or four households, one has at least one nursing robot.

Not only in Japan, but also in China, the pension robot has also begun to be popularized. Hangzhou, Ji'nan, Tianjin and other social welfare institutions and nursing homes have been the introduction of "Nursing Robot", to accompany the elderly chat boredom. The robot is connected to the sensor to detect an accidental fall of an old person. If an accident occurs, it sends an alarm signal to the manager via sms. Family members or nursing staff to camera function through remote operation robot mobile phone and tablet computer, network equipment, to understand the situation and take the rescue.

Into the family was questioned

The old age robot has stepped into people's life and played an important role in making up for the manpower. But can the retirement robot really be as close as a person to serve the elderly? Can they really take care of old people? Moreover, intelligent "care" into the family, is more difficult to cross the people's moral and psychological barriers. Just as social media such as WeChat and micro-blog have just emerged, people are questioning that they will lead to alienation between people. Almost every revolution in technology can lead to panic about alienation.

"For robot workers, we must ask: more robots in the isolation of human, or really help people?" University of Edinburgh robotics center director Professor Parsons pointed out that "the use of robots has also led to concerns about personal information. The quality and personalized service of the robot is directly proportional to the amount of data you are willing to release to the system, and your data will be exchanged for better robot services."

In addition, although the robot can in some function instead of even beyond children and workers, but emotionally unable to replace humans. In one, "will you keep the robot company with the parents?"" In the survey, the netizen "laughing and joking pony" said: "parents have been suffering before, and they are hard to bring us. Why can't we stay with them in the same way?" Robots can never take the place of children."

There is no denying the fact that robot technology has its drawbacks. Especially for the "elderly robot", in the identification of drugs, and human interaction, precise action, there is a high degree of accuracy requirements. Although these functions are technically available, there is still considerable uncertainty about the success rate of identification.

Little machines have great potential

The United States Census Bureau in March 29, 2016 released a report called "a growing old world: 2015" report, by 2050, the global aging population over the age of 65 the proportion of the total population will double, the number will be 2.5 times more than the current. The tremendous pressure of population aging has promoted the development of intelligent robots in the field of nursing and retirement.

From our experience, medical care field is currently one of the most popular Android application development in vertical field, the world's best engineers and managers have to see the huge potential of the robot in solving the global problem of aging." In addition to the "manpower shortage" factor, reducing the overall cost of medical care is also an important goal for the future of the robot in the field of care.

But some experts believe that there are some difficulties in the development of the old age robot. Dun Xiangming, a member of the National 863 service robot research group and an associate professor of Robotics Research Institute of Shanghai Jiao Tong University, lists the security issues in human-computer interaction as the first priority. In Dayton Xiang Ming view, the global civil robot is still emerging areas. Because of the individual and environmental differences, interactive security is a global problem to be solved, so most of the products are still in the laboratory research and product testing stage, and the production time is not yet ripe.

Looking at the domestic robot industry development plan, the national development and Reform Commission issued in 2016 "(2016-2020)" also mentioned the "intelligence Nursing Robot", and it is listed as a symbol of focus on the development of products, pointed out the need to promote the professional service robot series, personal and family service robot to achieve commercialization.

According to Analysys International day before the report, 2016 China Chi