No ratings yet.

In a recent study by MIT Media Lab, researchers have created a robotic teddy bear named Huggable to support pediatric specialists. The purpose of the teddy bear is to increase interaction on an emotional level with hospitalized children. This could help doctors to better understand their emotions, which subsequently could improve the recovery process (The New York Times, 2015).

The experiment was carried out in the pediatric department, where children were randomly appointed to a tablet with the virtual teddy bear, a normal stuffed teddy bear or Huggable, the robotic teddy bear. The experiment has shown improvement on the mental state of the children with the latter intervention. The study has shown results that the robot bear helped to lift up the mood of the child and eased the anxiety. In addition, the pain level was perceived lower by the patient that engaged with the robotic teddy bear (Matheson, 2019).

The teddy bear is currently assisted by a specialist, that talks through the bear with an altered voice and plays with the child.  The aim for the future is to develop an automated teddy bear, that also can be brought home to monitor the child. While it interacts with the child, it can simultaneously gather data and information. However, researchers are concerned with the long-term us of the robotic bear. The question is whether the interest for the companion will stay the same after it is brought home (Matheson, 2019).

Eventually, the technology will improve and these robots can respond better to the needs of the patients. Moreover, not only does the robot have a therapeutic value for children but it could also serve as a companion for elderly that are coping with isolation. There certainly will be a lot more opportunities for the deployment of social robots in the health care industry.

 

 

Sources:

Matheson, R. (2019).Study: Social robots can benefit hospitalized children.[online] MT News. Available at: http://news.mit.edu/2019/social-robots-benefit-sick-children-0626. [Accessed 8 Oct. 2019]

The New York Times.(2015).A Talking Teddy Bear Practicing in the Pediatric Hospital.[online] Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/04/technology/huggable-robot-therapeutic-value-hospitals.html[Accessed 8 Oct. 2019]

 

 

 

5/5 (1)

We are connected to people from all around the world through social media. The translate button allows us to understand text from our foreign friends. As I am writing this article, I need help from Google Translate to translate some words. You might be doing that as well. It is a simple tool to interpret from and to convert to another language. We know that it is not reliable enough to use it on its own. Google has warned that translation tools should not be relied on for complex tasks. However, in the US it is being used in the qualification of refugee application.

The US government allows the use of machine translation tools for the vetting procedure of refugees. A manual has been set up for the US immigration officials on how to use Google Translate step-by-step. Screening the social media of applicants is part of the procedure and helps to decide whether a refugee is allowed into the country. The manual only applies to refugees whose parents or spouses have been admitted to the US or also defined as follow-to-join cases. The officials are instructed to utilize free automated translation services and can decide whether to use an expert in translation. However, officers might lack fluency in the foreign language and therefore would not request a language expert for a second revision (Torbati, 2019). Nonetheless, the automated translation services have difficulties in translating culture-based texts or idioms and, therefore, are prone to make mistakes which can cause misinterpretation.

The machine translation is improving but is not meant as a replacement for human translators. Improvements have been made with neural machine translation, algorithms that uses artificial intelligence to predict the sequence of sentences using phrases (Siu, 2018). However, we should not rely heavily on this kind of technology while making critical decisions.

To what extend do you think we should use automated translation in the decision-making process?

Sources:
Siu, D.N. (2018) Google Translate is getting a big upgrade with improved offline mode. Available at: https://mashable.com/2018/06/12/google-translate-offline-mode-ai/?europe=true
Torbati, Y. (2019) Google says Google Translate can’t replace human translators. US immigration officials have used it to vet refugees. Available at: https://www.businessinsider.com/google-translate-us-immigration-officials-use-app-vet-refugees-2019-9