Remaking the world for robots [Opinion

Abstract

Every time I'm in a car in europe and bumping along a narrow, cobblestone street, I am reminded that our physical buildings and infrastructure don't always keep up with our technology. Whether we're talking about cobblestone roads or the lack of Ethernet cables in the walls of old buildings, much of our established architecture stays the same while technology moves forward. • But embracing augmented reality, autonomous vehicles, and robots gives us new incentives to redevelop our physical environments. To really get the best experience from these technologies, we'll have to create what Carla Diana, an established industrial designer and author, calls the “robot-readable world.” • Diana works with several businesses that make connected devices and robots. One such company is Diligent Robotics, of Austin, Texas, which is building Moxi, a one-handed robot designed for hospitals. Moxi will help nurses and orderlies by taking on routine tasks, such as fetching supplies and lab results, that don't require patient interaction. However, many hospitals weren't designed with rolling robots with pinchers for hands in mind. • Moxi can't open every kind of door or use the stairs, so its usefulness is limited in the average hospital. For now, Diligent sends a human helper for Moxi during test runs. But the company's thinking is that if hospitals see the value in an assistive robot, they might change their door handles and organize supplies around ramps, not stairs. The bonus is that these changes would make hospitals more accessible to the elderly and those with disabilities.