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Bring on the machines The use of care bots is controversial, but I would have welcomed robotic help for my elderly mother, says Paul Kitcatt WOULD you let a robot care for an ageing parent? That question occurred to me while visiting my mother in a care home just before she died. It wasn’t so much that the care she was getting from humans was bad, but it was inconsistent, and insufficient. You can do all the mental exercises possible, but what really keeps the brain sharp is company – preferably intelligent and interesting. Care home staff can’t offer enough of that because there are too few of them. It’s not their fault. The cost of providing such attention, which might help keep dementia at bay, is too great. This got me thinking about the use of robots in care homes, which prompted me to write a novel about the rise of this technology in such settings. Japan has led on the use of care robots for years, often for social interaction. Now other countries
are catching on. Last week came news that Pepper, a companion robot from Japan, is being tried out in the UK. Capable of reacting to emotions, it is being deployed in a coastal area near London. Reaction was mixed. Critics objected to spending money on Pepper on many grounds. One is that it is rather a basic robot. But look at the first mobile phones, and see how far they have come. This technology will improve. Perhaps the next generation will offer basic medical care. After all, AI provides better diagnosis in some fields than human doctors, and surgeons accept that robots can outperform them at certain operations. As I explored the idea of care robots, I looked even further forward, positing a human-like robot indistinguishable from us. This is where we are going. Pepper’s descendants will be
Switched off UN climate events are a wasted opportunity for public engagement, says Adam Corner THE 23rd meeting of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP23) is about to begin in Bonn, Germany. If this information fails to set your pulse racing, you’re not alone. Which is a problem, given that these are the blockbuster events dedicated to the issue. What’s worse is that they may be creating 24 | NewScientist | 4 November 2017
reports on the summit reaching them, Germans were no more likely to want to cut their carbon use after the event. Researchers blame a lack of “context” in coverage, saying it often omits analysis of the wider meaning of such conferences. Germans may have assumed work on climate change was being taken care of, with no clear role for themselves. This chimes with research I’m involved in at UK non-profit organisation Climate Outreach on
a more relaxed attitude among the public towards taking action. This was shown by a survey in Germany before, during and after the “historic” Paris UN conference in 2015. It found that rather than “Blockbuster UN climate catalysing concern, citizens events may create a more became less inclined to push for relaxed attitude when it a leading role for Germany in comes to public action” climate politics. And despite
the image the public gets of these UN events. Despite the many ways in which climate change affects us – health, homes, food, travel – coverage is very literal, dominated by anonymous negotiators inside the conference, or stage-managed protests outside. Such images don’t resonate with most people. That requires showing “ordinary” people being affected by, or responding to, climate change. There is a wider problem here. It is the assumption, held by campaigners and politicians, that massive, technocratic climate change events will automatically catalyse public engagement. They won’t. More than factual