Reykjavík Grapevine - 05.05.2017, Blaðsíða 16

The Robots Are
Coming For
The Elderly
“A project like this could have interesting
ramifications for specific work environments
that are highly mechanised and involve little
to no human interaction.”

Words: Alice Demurtas
Photo: Art Bicnick
NEWS It wasn’t long ago that hu-
mans were dreaming of a new
millennium where life would be
entirely supported by robots. We
thought we’d be flying the family
spaceship to work every morning
by 2010 or that we’d come home
to a house kept clean by a shiny,
beeping humanoid on wheels like
the Jetsons’.
Though we’re quite there yet,
the idea of exploiting technology’s
full potential to help humans in
their everyday tasks is quickly
becoming a reality. Even the film
industry has decided to give its
utopian tech world a break in or-
der to explore a more realistic re-
lationship between humans and
machines. In the meantime, while
the arts debate its ethical dilem-
mas, public and private institu-
tions invest in introducing this
kind of technology into real-life
situations.
Such is the case with CoCo-
Maps, a project that aims to imple-
ment cognitive map architecture
in humanoid robots to encourage
complex interactions between
robots and humans. The project
was funded by the European Co-
ordination Hub for Open Robotics
Development (ECHORD++), which
bridges the gap between research-
ers and manufacturers to bring
successful experiments and ideas
into the market.
Robo-buddy
A project like this could have inter-
esting ramifications for specific
work environments that are high-
ly mechanised and involve little to
no human interaction. However,
CoCoMaps has different plans al-
together. As Þór List,the manag-
ing director of CMLabs (the other
partner in the CoCoMaps project),
explains on the phone, CoCoMaps
expect to implement their robots
within individuals’ homes in the
near future, especially in rela-
tion to elder care. “These robots
could be sold to elderly people who
spend most of their time alone,
who perhaps live far away from
their families or who get turned
down by senior houses,” Þór says.
“A system like this would definite-
ly diminish individual costs when
it comes to caregiving.”
The concept of machines inter-
acting with people through cog-
nitive maps is not new in itself:
Honda released its first function-
ing ASIMO humanoid robot in the
year 2000. However, CoCoMaps
aims at a more complex kind of
interaction, wherein the robot is
required to collaborate with an-
other communicative machine
and more than one human si-
multaneously, thus encouraging
social interactions with people
while completing different physi-
cal tasks. For those unfamiliar
with cognitive maps, they can be
seen as mental representations
used by individuals to learn, store
and remember information about
their spatial environment.
Electronic helper
From a physical point of view, the
robots should be able to make out
spaces as well as to identify, inter-
act with and manipulate objects.
They should be able to stop and
change their focus to other tasks
or interactions if interruptions
occur. In a similar way, from a
verbal point of view, the cognitive
map supports real-time commu-
nication. Although the machine
is initially programmed with a se-
ries of modular patterns of behav-
iour, it also learns from the indi-
vidual and the environment. The
cognitive map allows the comput-
er to speak more naturally rather
than merely understand simple
sentences. Furthermore, it allows
for verbal interruptions and two-
way interaction, instead of simply
providing answers to a stimulus.
Finding multiple, trustwor-
thy caregivers can indeed be an
expensive and time-consuming
issue. Instead, a humanoid robot
with the ability to interact and
help humans in their daily tasks
could become essential by provid-
ing services that a single human
caregiver cannot provide at all
times. Not only it would allow peo-
ple to live in their own homes but
it would also take note of whether
the patient has taken his or her
medicines and provide a consis-
tent 24-hour service.
“It would also allow people to
obtain or retain their social net-
work without having to impose
themselves physically or finan-
cially, as the robot is able to help
them organise their social life by
scheduling calls to family mem-
bers,” Þór affirms enthusiasti-
cally. He adds: “Furthermore, it is
able to collect and store informa-
tion regarding behaviour changes
that might be helpful to a doc-
tor, as well as assisting in case of
emergency by picking up visual or
vocal inputs and forwarding them
to a help line.”
16 The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 07 — 2017
Þór List is the managing director of CMLabs,
the other partner in the CoCoMaps project
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