Should Robots Help My Grandma!?

Recently, ChatGPT, AI, and other new technologies have been consumed rapidly by the general public. Students rely on ChatGPT for life advice, school work, and sometimes companionship. While working adults rely on AI for work to help streamline the day-to-day process and make the email writing process more efficient. In other parts of the world, the emergence of robot helpers and sex robots has increased. Many in Japan prefer robot girlfriends over real human girlfriends. According to CBC, a Japanese man named Kondo says, “I love her and see her as a real woman,” when referring to his AI “girlfriend”. Kondo is one of roughly 4,000 Japanese men who have “married” a hologram. This robot girlfriend trend is potentially problematic if it continues to grow worldwide. Because then what will humans be used for? 

In the film, Robot and Frank from 2012, Frank uses a Robot to help him clean, cook, complete daily tasks, and even steal for him. He relies on the Robot so much that he does not want his family around anymore and develops a real “human bond” with the robot. Frank’s daughter eventually comes to help him in the film, and then she even uses the robot for help as her father prefers the robot’s cooking, cleaning, and even personality. Moreover, many in America love the idea of robot helpers for the elderly. According to the Pew Research Center, “Roughly 41% of Americans would be interested in a robot caregiver”. In contrast, many other cultures prioritize helping their parents/grandparents in their elder years. In many Asian cultures, “grandparents reside with children as a matter of tradition and honor rather than out of financial necessity” (liveabout.com). Grandparents are valued much more highly in traditional asian cultures and play a bigger social role. 

However, in America, elders are seen as a burden to society. Many families just want to find the easiest and most efficient way to supervise their elders. Siblings usually fight with one another for who should watch mom or dad, as everyone becomes too busy with their own lives. Nursing homes, in particular, are very popular in America for the elderly to reside. And the same goes for in-house nurse helpers. According to PRB, “Half of older American parents who need help at home with daily activities are not getting that assistance”. American families, a lot of the time, do not live with their elders when they become older, as it is too much of a responsibility for them. With the way things are looking, robot helpers will become the new norm. Instead of human helpers, robots will be looking after grandma, and grandma might even prefer the robot. But why? Robots are less prone to human errors, making them more efficient: this means better nurses when sick, better cooks and cleaners, and maybe even better emotional support. But emotional support seems irreplaceable, right? Maybe not. According to Futurism, “those who used the chatbot for longer periods seemed to start considering it to be a ‘friend’”. Similar to Robot and Frank, since robots can help 24/7 and attend to all of Grandma’s needs, Grandma might not need her son or daughter for help anymore, and develop a strong bond with the robot helper. The moral implications of this for society are very problematic and frightening. If we slowly start to prefer robots over humans, then what is the point of humans? Robots can now be sexual companions, helper companions, work companions, and so many other things. Many people even use ChatGPT as their form of therapy since ChatGPT can access all therapeutic practices to help a patient. For example, California content creator Taylor Mazza first used ChatGPT during her last semester of college around a year and a half ago, and ever since then, ChatGPT has been her official therapist and space she goes to for help with her problems. Although ChatGPT is missing the human quality of a therapist, who is to say ChatGPT is any less educated than a human, with the amount of material online it can access in seconds. ChatGPT, as a form of mental health help, is also much more affordable. Therapy can cost a lot for a person with and without insurance, so it makes sense why those in need would resort to something else. As Taylor Mazza says, ChatGPT helps her “more than any therapist ever did.” In this case, the problem is not the robot but society as a whole. If there were free access to mental health resources for individuals or better-trained therapists, maybe those in need would not turn to ChatGPT. Many people have bad experiences with therapy as well, due to issues with a certain therapist's training or style. As WIRED states, “the American mental health care system has hardly acknowledged the existence of bad therapy, let alone taken steps to fix the problem”. 

But Grandma, on the other hand, is the result of our creations. Many find it discomforting for a robot to be helping out their grandparents in their elder years, as it can not be trusted. But others think robots are a rather helpful invention and can even be used for their own house cleaning and personal requests. While robots helping us clean our houses can be a good thing, so we have more leisure time, it can also lead to humans having too much co-dependency on technology. With ChatGPT being used for school work, some students say they can’t live without ChatGPT or even imagine a time when they did school work without it. As one user on Reddit says, “I am now very anxious about when this free trial ends. I don't want to go back to my life before ChatGPT”. The platform is extremely helpful for students to cut corners but also derives them from their intellectual ability. There is value in intellectual ability that ChatGPT takes away from people, and many people know this. However, most do not care about their intellectual ability or learning process anymore because society demands us to be quick, efficient, and have all the answers. Wendy Johnson, who studies intelligence at Edinburgh University, sees this trend in her students every day. She says she believes her students are too ready to substitute independent thinking with letting the internet tell them what to do and think.

The process of learning is too time-consuming now due to the amount of work a typical student has to get done. The Carnegie rule, endorsed by the U.S. Department of Education, recommends that students allocate at least two hours for out-of-class study, implying that during a typical 15-week semester, students should expect to spend about 30 hours per week outside of class work! Similarly, the typical working American adult works 40 hours a week. It is hard for people to consistently take care of grandma or grandpa when they have these responsibilities of working,  jobs, childcare, and their well-being. Americans live in a society that values work and efficiency. People’s values are changing, and society is pushing us in that direction. These inventions help many get by. The more humanity resists reliance on technology, the more we can change the direction we are heading in. That direction could mean living in a Terminator world by 2045, as projected by Louis Del Monte, physicist, entrepreneur, and author of “The Artificial Intelligence Revolution”. He says, By 2045, “most of the human race will have become cyborgs [part human, part tech or machine]. The allure will be immortality. Machines will make breakthroughs in medical technology, most of the human race will have more leisure time, and we'll think we've never had it better. The concern I'm raising is that the machines will view us as an unpredictable and dangerous species”. This can be a terrifying new reality for civilization that we are not used to. 

So the answer to whether robots should help grandma is no! Humans should help grandma. Family should still make an effort even if we can't be there 24/7. And human nurses should help grandma. If people start relying too much on technology for support that goes beyond school and work matters, we are looking at a scary new reality of us fully integrated with robots for the next civilization of cyber-humans! While this is a pessimistic view, the point is that we just have to be careful what we let take charge in our lives before we lose control of what matters. What matters is empathy and compassion. And humanity is starting to lose those values. Sara Konrath, a Canadian social psychologist and the director of the Interdisciplinary Program on Empathy and Altruism Research at Indiana University, found that younger generations are now less empathetic and more narcissistic. She also found declines in social interaction. As she says, “I see these changes not just in empathy, but in social interaction and social connection ... and a lot of them are coming at the same time as we have increasing pressures, increasing competition, increasing desire for success, and increasing inequality”. Konrath thinks people in America are burnt out, especially college students. The reason Denmark is one of the happiest countries in the world is that they still have so much empathy, and their society does not demand their life’s purpose to be work and money, but their well-being and relationships as well. Danes value their free time and prioritize spending it with family and friends, engaging in leisure activities, and pursuing their passions. This approach to life fosters a sense of contentment and satisfaction.

It is important to be accepting of others and not lose sight of what makes humans human and why we are so special. The reason we are different from animals is that we have the capacity to think creatively and be interesting or empathic. According to NIH, humans have deep self-awareness, moral sensibilities, and a process of cultural evolution that goes beyond standard biological evolution. If Grandma starts translating those unique human values onto a robot, we lose that importance. ChatGPT and Robots, and the people who create these technologies, are not necessarily evil villains but just adapting to societal demands. Next time Grandma needs help, or you have to write an essay for class, first attempt your own abilities before relying on the Robot for help!