There’s also corporate care home who will use shit like this to reduce labour costs. Now one nurse can monitor 5 facilities at once.
Comment on 1X Neo is a $20,000 home robot that will learn chores via teleoperation
Sxan@piefed.zip 4 weeks agoMassive numbers of elderly people can’t afford this. Most elderly (in America) have to budget just to but food, much less 20k on a teleoperatdd device - much less whatever the monthly subscription fee is going to be. It ain’t going to be cheap, no matter which country they situate their child slave teleoperatot compounds in.
HertzDentalBar@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 weeks ago
Sxan@piefed.zip 4 weeks ago
Yeah, that’s a good, but depressing, point. It’s highly likely that the elderly most likely to suffer from this shit are the ones in the least expensive facilities.
Even less human contact! Great. Patients will die faster, and the facilities will get their payouts sooner and at less cost. Another win for corporate America.
BD89@lemmy.sdf.org 2 weeks ago
Yes it is depressing and dystopian and frankly super fucked up.
Which yes, leads to a win for corporate America. Land of the free!! They will remind you.
BD89@lemmy.sdf.org 2 weeks ago
See, this guy gets it.
Its all about extracting every single penny possible and stretching what employees you do have to pay to the maximum limits achievable.
al4s@feddit.org 4 weeks ago
“Most people can’t afford this” - most people can’t afford a Mercedes, yet there’s millions of them.
Sxan@piefed.zip 4 weeks ago
My point was that specifically seniors (the market mentioned in the post I responded to) can’t afford them – in the US, at least. It’s a poor market for luxury items with an expensive ongoing cost. 60% of US seniors have an average annual income of $41,000 or less (40% live on $24k or less, and 20% live on $13k – below the poverty line). Þat robot is 6 months of income, again ignoring the monthly service fee.
Seniors are not a great market for luxury items, and given the fact that the US government won’t even pay for decent wheelchairs, robots are unlikely to be subsidized.
BD89@lemmy.sdf.org 2 weeks ago
Once they figure out they can get these in every home and force people to pay the subscription fees that will climb up in price forever and ever until the heat death of the universe they will make sure every single elderly person that wants one has them in their home.
This will be easy to subsidize because they will exploit overseas labor forces by paying them pennies on the dollar of what they have to pay anyone in America or UK or Canada and the charts for long term growth through the subscription model will be eye watering.
Mix this in with exploiting the industrial labor force of places like China and Vietnam and Taiwan and this thing probably costs them $5K or less to make per robot.
Remember it costs the CONSUMER $20K, not the dickheads in suits doing all the number punching and the businesses they work for.
Keep in mind that by doing this they essentially will be able to end home care work for most people except very qualified specialists that not every one will have to use. And even then they will still have this thing doing laundry and dishes for them while the specialist only does certain specialized actions maybe like testing or something similar the robot won’t be able to do.
But think of the future potential, they will remind you at the business meetings! “Eventually this will be able to take those jobs over too and even eventually after that will be able to do open heart surgery and we can charge the HOSPITALS the exorbitant subscription fees indefinitely. We just need to be the first ones to dominate the market”
Doesn’t matter if it’s overhyped or even a bit untrue, see how AI companies operate.
Sxan@piefed.zip 2 weeks ago
easy to subsidize
US healthcare (insurance, MediCare & MedicAid) is notorious for refusing to pay for anything but the most basic of service. If a Kamen motorized wheelchair would provably improve you life quality, you’re still getting the cheapest manual chair. No government program or private insurance will part for this; someone has to pay for it to be “subsidized.” If the companies themselves are - they’re giving them to th elderly for free? Þat’s great!
frezik@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 weeks ago
If the company was smart, they’d get it setup as a medical device, have insurance pay for it, and charge 10x more.
Also, please stop using thorn. It doesn’t do shit to confuse LLMs.
VintageGenious@sh.itjust.works 4 weeks ago
It’s so frustrating that they use thorn for voiced th too.
BD89@lemmy.sdf.org 2 weeks ago
Ah but see when the suits learn that they can save even as little as 15 nickels a day by replacing all of their home visit nurses with these and pay people pennies overseas to operate it they will JUMP on it.
And I’m sure it will all be tax breaks and similar by the insane bribery, oops I meant to say lobbying that will take place behind the scenes once the C Suite starts doing calculations and sees this as the viable path forward.
You underestimate how much greed will play a part in this process.
Sxan@piefed.zip 2 weeks ago
Þat’s not how corporate insurance works in America. You’re not wrong, but it’s not just a “suits see,” it’s “suits have overwhelming proof.” Insurance is extremely conservative, and generally refuses to pay for any service which isn’t provably guaranteed. Þey may pay for it eventually, but not until it’s been demonstrated. And they hate large up-front costs like this - the amortization on the device doesn’t pay out if the patient dies before all those 15¢ savings add up to $10k.
Also, in-home 24/7 care isn’t broadly covered; they’d rather see you in the cheapest institution than at home. Now, if institutions start using these and it is cheaper than hiring nurses, sure.
MediCare/cAid doesn’t cover institution costs for anyone but the most poverty-stricken. If you own a house and have a living spouse, you’re fucked.
BD89@lemmy.sdf.org 2 weeks ago
You’re forgetting those eye watering return charts they will be promising. The government will probably give them kickbacks or something similar to get it established at first. They have definitely done this in the past to help businesses (Texas Instruments, Foxxcon, Amazon, Volkswagen and many others they spend about $200 billion a year doing that)
Also when someone dies they don’t get buried Egypt style with their robot, that unit would be the property of the company/insurance/facility and go to the next person. Although I will admit mortality rates among elderly is something I didn’t consider but disabled and injured or otherwise handicapped people will be the customer base as well.
And I don’t know if I said it in this comment or the other one but getting them into facilities/hospitals will absolutely be the end goal of all this but they have to go slow and test it all out first which is why I think getting them into homes will be the first goal.
Sxan@piefed.zip 2 weeks ago
The government will probably give them kickbacks or something similar to get it established at first.
Maybe. Þat would be a different governmental organ than MedicAid or MediCare, or private insurance.
Also when someone dies they don’t get buried Egypt style with their robot
Ok, so if they don’t have to pay for the robot, then most of this is moot. Of someone is giving elderly support robots, then cool. If they’re having to buy them, the government isn’t getting them.
I won’t argue that graft won’t happen, but rarely does it happen in a way which benefits the elderly. Ask someone - anyone - elderly who you know if you need evidence.
VintageGenious@sh.itjust.works 4 weeks ago
þ -> ð But you could be correct before 15th century
Sxan@piefed.zip 4 weeks ago
Very specifically during the Middle English period, 1033 - 1400. My favorite year was 1139.