Tyler Cowen reads my prediction about productivity growth in caring for old people, and says "I hereby take Megan to be a robot pessimist. "
For the relevant time period, yes. The boomers start retiring this year; by 75, they'll start having major life impairment. By 20 years hence, we will--if we are not to lose productivity--need a robot capable of feeding and bathing an old person without damaging them. I don't see that as particularly likely. The technical hurdles are tough, and so, it turns out, are the economics:
It's easy to walk through the Robotics Tech Zone at CES without ever realizing it. There are card tables strewn with a handful of gaudy brochures, booths that are completely empty, a handful of extroverted toys, and what appear, at first, to be many Roombas. Some of these roving disks zoom across smaller pens, one across a stage—all idly bouncing off their surroundings and mercifully unaware of how boring they are. That's because they're basically clones of the iPod of consumer robots: the Roomba.In fact, these competitors don't really function any differently either; Yujin Robot's Plus A robotic vacuum, for instance, boasts a list of features that are identical to the latest Roombas, including pre-set cleaning times and the ability to automatically recharge its lithium-ion battery. With 2.5 million Roombas sold, and no one currently coming close to out-innovating its flagship model, iRobot has effectively zero competition. But that's not necessarily a good thing.
"One company doesn't make an industry," the company's CEO, Angle, has said for years. That's why iRobot developed Create, an open-source, mod-friendly version of Roomba that could not only empower the niche bot-hacking community, but serve as a research platform to help start-up robotics companies get their footing. As investors warm up to the concept of consumer robots, Angle claims it's becoming easier for newcomers to get access to capital. Still, he said, creating household bots is a nightmarish business proposition.
"Unlike with software, the margins are terrible," he said, citing 56 percent drop-off from software to robotics profits. "And you're building physical stuff. You have moving parts, gears operating in nasty environments. The robots are going to break." Initially, the Roomba was built to last 150 hours before failing, to meet European product standards. But considering how often the vacuum runs, that would have meant just six months of operation.
Even military robot-makers like Boeing and Foster-Miller, who are no strangers to engineering for endurance, would be crippled by the slim profit margins involved in consumer robotics, according to Angle. And while Samsung, General Electric and similar companies might have a better shot, he maintains that gaining a foothold is "ridiculously hard. It took us 10 years to develop the competence," Angle said, some of which included a toy deal with Hasbro that didn't pan out, but helped teach the company how to deal with production and quality control issues on a massive scale.
I am obviously required to pass this along: http://www.theonion.com/content/video/in_the_know_are_we_giving_the
(Which I blogged about today using the exact same title you use here.)
"By 20 years hence, we will--if we are not to lose productivity--need a robot capable of feeding and bathing an old person without damaging them"
Can't we just use what usually substitutes for robots in our economy, i.e., immigrant labor? I have this picture of america wasting billions and billions of dollars trying to build complex robots to do simple tasks that any person can do while on a work visa.
Helter: It's true that right now it's cheaper just to hire a Mexican to do the job, but in the future, labor's demand will become ever higher and some point it will be cheaper to build one more robot than hire an immigrant. That's what motivates a lot of the research.
Of course, Robin_Hanson has argued in a paper you can find through Google, that if robots can ever act as a full substitue for general human labor, wages will plummet, and anyone who doesn't own shares in corporations that buy such robots is pretty screwed. The stock market will surge in value every year.
Buy your equity indexes today!
I agree with the "just hire immigrants" point of view. Unfortunately our all knowing congress doesn't want to touch the issue other than to build a wall. Nostalgia for the cold war I guess.
There will be plenty of time to worry about robots once we run out of people wanting to come to this country and standards of living (wages) start rising.
"if robots can ever act as a full substitue for general human labor, wages will plummet, and anyone who doesn't own shares in corporations that buy such robots is pretty screwed."
I've thought about that several times. But I've come to the conclusion that it would just be another instance of Ricardo's theory of comparative advantage. Even if robots (or the Chinese for that matter) could do everything we do now, it would just open up opportunities for us to do new other things.
". . . but in the future, labor's demand will become ever higher and some point it will be cheaper to build one more robot than hire an immigrant"
Could be. It's an interesting thing to speculate about. A single robot would replace 3-4 immigrants who would need to be maintained for each elderly person or group, I guess.
Hmm. 2 hours per month times 6 months leaves me way short of 150 hours life expectancy for the Roomba.
What, doesn't everyone clean twice a month?
Hi-tech Israel's national health service has discovered a low-cost way of caring for its incapacitated elderly without robots: they're called Filipinas. Israel brings over a Filipina care-giver on a work visa that lasts as long as the elderly person lives; when that person passes away, the Filipina goes home.
Japan has had robots that can bathe old people for years.
I think this is short-sighted. In 20 years we may not have robots that can care for an elderly person without harming him, but we can get the same effect by displacing workers in fields more amenable to robots. McDonald's has built an entirely automated restaurant it will eventually be cost-effective to replicate, and we're not more than 10 years away from having reliable robotic janitors and lawnmowers. GM predicts a self-driving car in 9 years, which could replace a lot of taxi drivers. This creates a lot of potential nursemaids.
As the Librarian has pointed out, Japan has a huge need for eldercare robots due to their demographics and social norms. Japan is much more advanced in robotic systems than the US is at this point. Our R&D for robots has concentrated on assembly line and military applications - they have substituted consumer applications for military.
Of course, Robin_Hanson has argued in a paper you can find through Google, that if robots can ever act as a full substitue for general human labor, wages will plummet, and anyone who doesn't own shares in corporations that buy such robots is pretty screwed.
This was the basis of Vonnegut's Player Piano, published in 1952. It was proposed in the 70s that labor unions buy and own the robots that displace their workers, leasing them to the company and using the proceeds to cushion the blow to the workers. Don't know how well that would work.
"if robots can ever act as a full substitue for general human labor, wages will plummet"
We've heard these predictions twice before: Once during the industrial revolution and then again during the computer revolution. Both predictions failed to pan out - why should the robot revolution be any different?
Bathing granny is nothing. Check out these
babies! Their footwork is a tad slow, but not for long.
"iRobot has effectively zero competition."
That is because the industry isn't really trying to compete with iRobot. The vacuum industry isn't what what is interesting about CES this year.
It was the increase in remote presence ability. Which - if you haven't really been following where the industry is going, you wouldn't notice. For most reviewers - you would miss the difference. But, that is really the story of the robotics area at CES.
Once my batteries are charged from my camera - I will have a post about this. But since I'm not actually a writer, just a blogger - I don't write at article speed.
jmo and Njorl: While I generally share your optimism, a *fully general* robot, that can do *anything* a human can do, *including creativity*, is fundamentally different. Previous labor replacements only replaced one very specific type of labor. This would replace all, and it would be at some point far cheaper to make a robot than another human.
People would, indeed, do other things -- but only at wages competitive with robots! Since *robots* would fall in price, so would wages. If you think in terms of "wages per unit intelligence", improving technology necessarily means lower wages for humans.
So while I'm optimistic, I'm more optimistic about, "let's all own shares in these robots from the beginning so we all share in the wealth".
Btw, the Japanese robots are pretty interesting, it looks like a lot of the solutions will be merely "Do what Japan does".
The field of prosthetics seems to be beginning a new revolution right now that will very likely bear fruit much sooner than twenty years from now. Exoskeletons seem to be coming on strong, too. Perhaps grandpa could lift himself out of the tub if his legs were stronger.
Monitoring devices that can call for help when grandma needs it (such as during a stroke or seizure or when grandma is in a daze and can't remember what year it is) are much closer than twenty years away.
Drugs that keep grandpa up and mobile for extra years in old age are not going to take twenty years - in some ways, they are here now. Ditto for drugs that keep grandpa from forgetting Grandma's name.
Full-on, humanoid robots aren't the only technological answers to old age.
It apparently does not occur to anyone here that most people would think that the idea of robots taking care of Mom is more appropriate to Futurama than real life? Because they indtinctively feel that Mom would derive some benefit from contact with actual human beings?
(OK, I know your answer -- Mom should have worked harder, saved more money, etc. Don't bother. Take it as read.)
I don't want to argue about it. I just want to point out that most people let feelings get mixed up in what you think should be purely economic decisions. I don't know how you are going to cure them of it unless you send them all to the U. of C.
Okay, Person, I'm lost. Robots come along who can do everything better than a human being. So they produce stuff far cheaper than a human being can. Since they can do everything better than a human being they produce more food, bath more disabled people, locate more natural resources, carry out more scientific research, argue more philosophical problems and build more robots than we can. Plus they can maintain each other better than we could then.
Fond as I am of economics and interested as I am in high wages, in this scenario, I think the far more interesting and important question is "what would the robots do with us?"
The best outcome I can see is that the robots get so caught up in deep philosophical arguments about how they should treat humans that we can get on with our lives.
I agree with Rob. Look beyond robots to other technologies that either help disabled people, not just the elderly, do more for themselves or mitigate disability. A lot of it is improvements in existing technology such as what has been done with wheelchairs.
the lesson of history is that where there is a need someone often finds a way to fill it, especially if they can make some money. The fact that more Americans than ever are filling highly skilled jobs acts as a magnet drawing in unskilled labor from other countries, or promoting outsourcing, to fill our need for services. If unskilled labor gets too expensive or hard to obtain, technological fixes become attractive.
If it is up to the state to provide for disabled people, ways will have to be found to keep the state from stifling such innovations.
The solution to the elder care problem isn't going to be a robot nursemaid. Think cheesy commercials, like the clapper and the life alert. Medical improvements and automation in the home will allow older people (and the disabled) to do more on their own with technological assistance.
This is actually much better than "robot nursemaids" as it allows for a feeling of independence. I'd rather "get myself out of bed" with the help of an automatic bed than have someone (human or robot) have to lift me out of bed. I'd rather drive my own wheelchair (or segway?) than be carried or pushed by a robot. I'd rather "cook my own food" using an automated voice-activated kitchen than have a robot make my food. Human contact is not limited to nursemaids... old people can still socialize. And an older person who is running his own life with help from technology would probably be better able to get out.
I seriously doubt that human-replacement robots will be practical for anything except interacting with humans (think robotic tourguides/secretaries). The work will be done by specialized "robots" and automatic machines.
Twenty years is a long time... worker productivity could be increasedy dramatically by any number of innovations that have nothing to do directly with elder care. But any increase in wealth would allow for more technology to be applied to elder care.
EI