Can robots be nurses?
We think not. Please see some of our analyses on robot nurses below for an in-depth exploration of the robot nurse phenomenon. Interaction and intelligence January 22, 2007 — Today The Scotsman ran Angus Howarth’s “Robot nurses could be on the wards in three years, say scientists.” The piece reports on a project by European Union-funded scientists, working at universities in the U.K. and Ireland, to develop machines to “perform basic tasks” at hospitals. These include cleaning up spills, guiding visitors around, and perhaps distributing medicines and taking temperatures. The piece isn’t so different from many other recent press items that blithely suggest such robots are “nurses,” though this one does pack an impressive array of anti-nurse imagery into a small space (e.g., “nursebots,” “‘mechanised ‘angels'”). Unsurprisingly, the piece consults no real nurse; in fact, it’s not clear from the piece if even the “engineers and software experts” working on the “IWARD” project have done th
