Robotic Physical Therapists

Groopman, Jerome. “Robots That Care—Advances in technological therapy.”
The New Yorker. Nov. 2, 2009.

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Writing in The New Yorker, Jerome Groopman discusses the use of robots in physical therapy. In an article entitled “Robots That Care—Advances in technological therapy,” Groopman tells of a professor of computer science, Maja Mataric’, who is working with Alzheimer’s patients, stroke victims and autistic children using robots. She has set out to build a robot that could assist a stroke victim at home, encouraging her to use a weakened arm or leg. The patients would be instructed by sounds rather than touch. In a pilot trial, they found that the patient is more likely to perform therapy when the robot is there. For patients who are introverted, the robots speak softly, and for those who are extroverted, the robot speaks more forcefully. Mataric’ has been given funding to do a study comparing socially assistive robots with computers in therapy that help learning. Groopman’s point of view is that robots are tools that can help a physical therapist in working with someone who has had a stroke or accident that causes him to lose some motor control. Mataric’ is trying to create robots that can serve as caregivers and can serve as companions to the patients.

However, some believe that using robots as physical therapists can be dangerous. Sherry Turkle, a professor at M.I.T. thinks it is harmful for the children and elderly to become attached to something as inhuman as a robot. She says, “We were wired through evolution to feel that when something looks us in the eye, then someone is at home in it.” Turkle argues that children and the elderly will start to love the robot, and the robot cannot return this emotion. She asks what will happen to the patient when the robot is gone and the patient has gotten emotionally dependent on it. She questions whether robots are even necessary for working with the elderly in nursing homes, and she questions their use with autistic children. She says there is no data on the long-term effects. She believes that the cultural effect of using robots in these instances is a “giant social experiment with real risks.” But like all the new technology, robotic therapists will change the way some segments of the population live.

The Never-Betters, The Better-Nevers and The Ever Wasers

Gopnik, Adam. “The Information – How the Internet gets inside us.”
The New Yorker. 14 Feb. 2011. Web. 14 Feb. 2011.

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Writing in The New Yorker, Adam Gopnik discusses the impact the internet has had on our culture. In his article, “The Information-How the Internet gets inside us,” Gopnik says books have been written expressing three different viewpoints. He says the Never-Betters think the world is better off since the coming of the internet; they believe “that we’re on the brink of a new utopia, where information will be free and democratic, news will be made from the bottom up, love will reign, and cookies will bake themselves. The Better-Nevers think we were better off in the old days before the internet; “that the world that is coming to an end is superior to the one that is taking its place.” The Ever-Wasers says that there has always been something like this going on and there always will be. For instance, everyone thought that television would be the downfall of society, and now everyone thinks the internet will bring us down. Gopnik’s point of vew in this argument is that these external machines do not make us what we are; that it is “ our consciousness that makes our credos, and we mostly live by those.”

Gopnik begins his article by alluding to the Harry Potter books. Because the setting for these books is in the 1990’s before the days of Google, the wizard is doing research by working in the stacks in the library. The present generation of kids thinks this is terribly old-fashioned; they ask, “Why doesn’t she just Google it?” In addition to Harry Potter, Gopnik uses many historical and literary allusions to show how the gathering of information has evolved over time. Gopnik argues that the feelings that humans once held in check because they would cause embarrassment are now unleashed through the internet. He comments that everything that was once said about television is now being said about the internet. Gopnik believes that the internet can be used for good or for evil; it is up to the user to decide. Gopnik says the impact on our culture will be in the “small changes in mood, life, manners, feelings” that the internet creates.