TJ Walker examines robots in elder care, where field tests reveal they need constant maintenance and charging. The U.S. has 4.3 million home health aides but 131,000 open care jobs in England. Robots like Paro and Pepper may help with tasks, but Walker argues they'll augment rather than replace human caregivers.
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Can robots fix elder care or just add chores? According to the BBC, British firms are racing to build robots that can help older adults with daily life, from cleaning to leading exercise class. Shadow robots. Rich Walker and no Relation insist we're not trying to build Terminator adding they want machines that make your life better. Field tests have been mixed so far. Researcher James Wright, who observed robots like Hug, Paro, and Pepper in a Japanese care home, found staff spent precious time cleaning and recharging the robots and troubleshooting when they went wrong. The broader context matters, though. In the US the need for human caregivers is exploding. A whole bunch of old people like me and people a little bit older than I am are really needing this stuff. Home health and personal care aides are already among the largest occupations, while coal mining now employs a tiny fraction. By comparison, we're talking about like 400,000, excuse me, 4 million home health care workers to maybe 40,000 coal miners. And yet it doesn't get talked as much. And the remaining openings in health care are huge. Robots may help with lifting reminders are social engagement, but they won't close a labor gap overnight. That's why the real job growth will come from small agencies and entrepreneurs deploying tech amplifies rather than replaces human care. Maybe what's the real message here? Robots are coming for you. Not necessarily to kill you, not necessarily to take your job or at least a job you want. They're coming to take care of grandma and grandpa, to feed them and clothe them and talk to them. And that is maybe not perfect, but it's a lot better than neglect. Let's dig a little bit deeper into this story. So anytime someone's dealing with an AI technology, their staffers, their communications officials, their lawyers are always saying, hey, be careful what you're saying. We don't want to scare people and make them think we're going to put everyone out of work and we're going to have, you know, 99% unemployment and people roaming the streets starving to death. So always say this isn't going to reduce jobs. And it's just, frankly not true. Every everyone who has a tech company at some level is trying to replace a human being. Not because they don't like human beings, but that is the nature of any technology. If I have a hammer, I can get the nail in much faster than if I have to go look for a rock and bang it awkwardly. That is the nature of technology. So let's look at some actual numbers. I mentioned about 4 million there. 4,347,700 home health care workers and personal care aides in the United States in 2024. It's one of the largest occupations around. Meanwhile, coal mining jobs are 40,000. So I mean, that's just an irregular, irrelevant number compared to home health care workers. And yet they don't get talked about. They're not seen as the great hero that everyone needs. In England, there are 131,000 open jobs right now for home health care workers. Here's the big issue we all love to say. We love grandma, grandpa or sisters, older brothers, family members who have needs and can't just take care of themselves. And yet nobody really wants to pay high wages, high benefits to home health care workers unless they're fabulously wealthy because most people can't afford it. I mean, if you have a grand, if you have a parent or grandparent who needs a full time healthcare worker, and you are a median income American family making $85,000 a year, you got a couple of kids, you got a mortgage, you've got car payments, you're lucky if you have an extra $500 a month. So how are you going to pay for grandma or grandpa's home health care work? So one of the solutions is if these robots can be created, even if they are $20,000 to buy it or rent it, the monthly fee is going to be a tiny, tiny fraction of what it would cost for a real human being. So that's the promise. The other thing is, yes, there's dignity in all work. And when you help someone in need, it does give a lot of people to really feel like you're there for someone, helping them in need, being nurturing. Some people do in fact enjoy being home healthcare work. But let's get real, for a lot of people, it's the only job they can get. A lot of this is in the underground economy. A lot of this is where immigrants who maybe don't have all their paperwork end up. And it's not glamorous work. Cleaning bedpans, giving people's people baths is not what most people aspire to. And if you do, you're a better person than I am. And you're a good person if that is what you aspire to and you enjoy it. But I don't think I'm making a huge stretch here when I say there's always going to be more jobs in the healthcare worker, the personal care work industry than there are people who really, really want to be in it. And when you have pay being relatively low, it is A prescription for unmet needs and for a lot of vacants. Are the robots there yet? It doesn't seem to be there yet because this recent study that the BBC just focused on showed where people still have to clean the robots. They've got to spend time charging them, there's maintenance at this stage, it's not reducing that much time it takes for helping someone. But the. The very nature of technology, of robots, of computers, of anything AI related is it gets better and better and better every single day, faster and faster. And now apparently, they have mastered creation of working fingers and opposable thumbs. For some of these robots that serve as AI caregivers, that's a huge breakthrough. Now, I haven't experimented with one yet. I may be doing so relatively soon for a member of my own family. If so, I will report to you and let you know how it goes. What do you think? Would you let a home healthcare worker come to work for you or a family member if they were a robot? It's easy to get high in mind. Oh, I wouldn't want a robot. How depersonalized. But do you have the time to give 247 care to a family member, a loved one? Do you want to do that? Do you have the resources to pay real human beings good wages? If not, these robots may very well fill the gap. I'm going to be reporting on that and sharing information that I find when I see it, because it is. It's going to transform the world and not just home health care workers. Robots are going to be doing well, some experts would say everything, even what I'm doing right now, I hope to be ready for that because I already have my own clone, which you've heard me talk about.
