Robots in our Hospitals – Bright New Future?

The Robot Surgeon from Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back

All the UK’s news networks spent a big chunk of last week announcing the fleet of robots that will be carrying out day to day tasks in a Scottish hospital. Here at FirstFound, we’ve been following this closely. For two reasons.

First, we’re always interested in the latest technological advances (and this is a little bit more exciting than Google’s last update), but more importantly we’ve seen enough sci-fi movies to know this might not work out for the best.

Fortunately, these robots are far more like the friendly, loveable robot from Short Circuit than a terrible death machine from Terminator. With a laser guidance system and lifting equipment, the fleet of robots will run along a dedicated network of tunnels at the Forth Valley Royal Hospital, Stirlingshire, and carry out menial tasks such as cleaning.

Sounds useful, but you’ll forgive us if we don’t trust the laser-wielding droids just yet. We do remember how The Matrix came about, after all.