'Robot Carers' Health and aged care is a rapidly growing industry and looks set to continue that way as many countries develop an aging population. One of the highest costs by far for aged care is the labour cost of the staff, including of course those staff who are carers and nurses. Increasingly researchers are developing machines to do this work not just models such as robot animals that are designed to soothe patients and play the role of 'pets' but increasingly robots who do the main tasks of care cleaning rooms, lifting patients, bringing meals etc. In the near future it is not unlikely that most of the day to day roles of nurses and careers could be performed by robots. As the artificial intelligence that runs such machines is improved, they could even be programmed to 'care' in the sense of providing empathy. Here is an example from a recent article on the topic, which mentions the Royal Commission into aged care in Australia. That recent investigation found many shocking breaches in the level of care provided to elderly people in care homes, many of which are run as for profit businesses: "With aged care workers among the worst-paid in our society, there is no hope of filling that kind of demand. The Royal Commission into aged care quality and safety is now underway and we are facing a year of revelations about the impacts of understaffing, underfunding and inadequate training. Some of the complaints already aired in the commission include unacceptably high rates of malnutrition among residents, lack of individualised care and cost- cutting that results in rationing necessities such as incontinence pads. While the development of "assistance robots" promises to help improve services and the quality of life for those in aged care facilities, there are concerns that technology should not be used as a substitute for human contact." https://ethics.org.au/can-robots-solve-our-aged-care-crisis/