MIT Working on Robotic Weight Loss Coach
Tue Aug 14, 2007 9:49PM EDT
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We all need a little moral support when pursuing weight loss. Some people blog about about their experience, others make videos about it, but in the near future motivation to lose weight will come from a robot sitting in your kitchen. The mad scientists over at The Media Lab have developed the first robotic weight loss coach. A set of them have been built in Boston as part of a study that will look at how humans interact with robots, as well as how useful robots can be as weight loss assistants.
Each robot has a built-in camera with face-tracking technology to help the robot make eye contact with the user as they interact. It also includes a touchscreen computer that tracks the amount of calories a person has consumed and burned on a daily basis. It seems the robot will then use the information you enter to help you shed a few pounds throughout the year. I like the way MIT is thinking, and personally I wouldn't mind a little scolding each time I reach for a Twinkie. To see a video of the robot in action head over to The Media Lab.
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2 Posted by vesta44 on Fri Aug 31, 2007 12:32PM EDT Report Abuse
I thought the people at MIT were supposed to be smart, but nooooooooooo, they've bought into the diet industry and big pharma's thin-at-any-cost hysteria. When are people going to get it through their heads that DIETS DON'T WORK!!!! You can diet and exercise all you want, and yeah, you'll lose a little weight. Then you stop losing weight unless you restrict calories further and/or exercise more. And once you quit, BANG!, the weight comes back plus a few more pounds. Why do you quit dieting? Because your body tells you you're starving it and any diet (as in restricted calories) is impossible to live on forever. I'm sorry, I'm going to eat a healthy variety of food, do the exercise I have time for, and not guilt-trip myself over a splurge now and then. Some effing robot on my kitchen counter telling me I don't need that cookie or I need to exercise more is going to get hit with a 2X4. I get enough ----- from people I don't even know, why the heck would I want to add a robot to that?
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3 Posted by zawod.rm on Fri Aug 31, 2007 3:47PM EDT Report Abuse
Why stop here? Make a robot-wife that nags you to do chores around the house, too. ;-)
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4 Posted by jaibuduvin on Mon Sep 3, 2007 5:45PM EDT Report Abuse
Technically speaking, diets DO WORK. The vast majority of people who are fat are fat because they eat too much. In many cases, but not all, there is some pyscho-socially abnormality behind the compulsion to consume. Eating, for fat people, is often a vice. What's sad is that most fat people already know this. If you befriend them, and get close to them, some of them will actually "confess" that they are "caught in a vicious cycle", as if it isn't obvious. MIT's Media lab is wasting money on this project, in my opinion. Think about it: fat people eat more food than their bodies need. Food costs money. Then they sign up for weight-loss programs that they do not use. Those cost money. Then they buy diet pills that "do not work". Those cost money. Then they hire person (human) fitness coach. Those do not work. Some people take drugs to make them vomit or have induced enema. That costs a small bit of money. And now this robot. All this time, there are mothers in 3rd-World countries begging for food to feed their children, a small fraction of that which is vomited or defecated by some fat people in developed countries. The government agency that is funding this project should be ashamed.
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5 Posted by thomas_fischer182 on Thu Sep 6, 2007 4:48PM EDT Report Abuse
hahahahaha. If you didn't get into MIT don't feel sad. They're wasting their time. This goes to show brains aren't everything in this world. You need Common Sense!!! Anyway, all of these other comments are super funny. I can't stop laughing at this one: "Why stop here? Make a robot-wife that nags you to do chores around the house, too. :)" ahahahahaahaha that's GOLD puuuuure GOLD
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1 Posted by rawkforchrist on Fri Aug 31, 2007 10:09AM EDT Report Abuse
I'm sure that the people they use to test on these robots will be screened but I can't wait to see pictures from when someone gets mad that the robot tells them they aren't working hard enough or simply that they haven't lost any weight and then they bash the robot for telling them that, I mean geeze I rip my robots apart just when they won't work right...when usually it's the programmers fault. but whatever, go Botball!