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WHY AI robots are taking over your healthcare
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May 18, 2025
Seeking to cut expenses improve care the medical industry is adding more and more robots--but at what cost to your health and safety? I drill down to look at the issues involved in this byte sized health care initiative.
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with the cost of health care continuing
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to rise and with qualified workers in
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short supply the medical industry is
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turning more and more to robots to
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reduce costs and free up humans from the
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more routine medical tasks China just
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announced that they are actually going
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to be putting robots into their health
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care system because they're literally
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overwhelmed Like many countries China's
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population is graying And at the same
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time they need so many health care
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professionals they can't replace them
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fast enough to cover the health care
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needs for their population They're
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actually taking humanoids and they're
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using them uh within their health care
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system for their aged So their nursing
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homes and other things they're actually
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going to start putting uh robots into
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place instead of having humans uh help
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the human How concerning is that that a
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a humanoid is now responsible for your
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healthcare well from one point of view
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it's actually not concerning at all It's
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actually a good thing because robots
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don't get tired They don't get scared
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They don't get hungry They're willing to
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do dull dirty dangerous jobs that humans
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aren't good at So when you look at uh
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being able to take care of a human then
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you've got a machine that doesn't mind
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being at your beck and call Also that
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machine can watch your vitals and other
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things a little bit more than a regular
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say a nurse or a doctor But there's a
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downside too Unlike a real medical
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professional a robot is all circuit
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boards and logic and it has no effective
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way of dealing with a seriously ill
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person who needs someone to talk to or
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for that matter is dying Yeah You got to
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have a little bit of empathy right you
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got to have a little bit of an ear to
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bend and and be able to talk to that
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human a little bit different than uh you
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know than the normal uh robotic voice of
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you know get up move whatever it is A
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study by the National Bureau of Economic
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Research estimates robots in the medical
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industry could save between 200 and $360
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billion in costs simply by automating
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tasks like dispensing medications
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disinfecting hospital environments and
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performing certain surgical procedures
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All that of course reduces labor costs
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and could potentially shorten hospital
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stays
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However there's still a lot to work out
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with controlling a truly autonomous AI
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robot Witness this viral video leaked to
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the internet of a Unite H1 robot
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appearing to go berserk after a software
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glitch disrupted the robot's balance
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stabilization systems Though the robot
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was not trying to kill its creators it
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sparked a broader debate about how
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malfunctions like that could pose major
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problems in instances where reliability
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is critical such as areas like robot
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assisted surgery Part of the challenge
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though really is going to come down to
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you know do we have the understanding of
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how to integrate these things correctly
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and right now we really just are are
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struggling with that As we give medical
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robots more and more responsibility we
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as a society have to ensure that there's
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a thoughtful approach in place which
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will ensure that safety systems are
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there that inspire confidence in both
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patients as well as clinicians Working
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for you I'm the consumer guy Steve
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Spraer
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[Music]
#Health Policy