Pepper the robot is programmed with hundreds of jokes, and if you don’t believe it, just ask her. The residents of the Estates nursing home in Roseville sure did as the robot made its national debut as a personal care assistant.
“Do you want to hear more jokes?” the robot asked.
“Yes!” the semicircle of elderly adults replied.
“I went on a date with a Roomba last week,” the robot said. “It totally sucked.”
Good thing the upright, 4-foot-high robot isn’t giving up its day job, which from here on will be to interact with residents, remind them to eat and exercise and react to their facial expressions or tone of voice.
Pepper is one of two robots introduced at the nursing home by researchers from the University of Minnesota Duluth, along with a 2-foot-high robot called NAO designed to lead residents in group exercises and dance routines. The goal is to provide technological support to a nursing home industry that is seeing more residents and more complex cases of dementia at a time when it is losing staff and expertise, said Arshia Khan, a UMD computer science professor.
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