Nearly two years ago, then Vice President of Product at Amazon, Charlie Tritschler, wrote about Astro, the company’s first iteration of a smart, home robot. Charlie reflectively explained the vision for the device: “Astro is a new and different kind of robot, one that’s designed to help customers with a range of tasks like home monitoring and keeping in touch with family. It brings together new advancements in artificial intelligence, computer vision, sensor technology, and voice and edge computing in a package that’s designed to be helpful and convenient.”
Two years later, the vision for Astro is still strong, as the company has started selling the device as a part of its “Day 1 Editions” products—those which are accessible to buyers only through an exclusive invitation. Amazon typically reserves this category for its most cutting-edge technology, such as the Astro or the “Ring Always Home Cam.”
Astro is described as a comprehensive household companion which offers a variety of services, ranging from allowing users to see a live view of their home while they are away, to learning daily habits and helping with household reminders.
Importantly, the device will employ advanced learning models to recognize familiar users, navigate complicated home landscapes, and seamlessly integrate itself into the household.
Notably, Astro’s potential applications in the healthcare space are endless. Most importantly, Amazon is pairing the device with Alexa Together, the company’s remote care-giving service which provides 24/7 access to emergency assistance and allows families to be connected to provide support.
Dave Limp, Senior Vice President of Amazon Devices, greets the crowd before announcing new Alexa … [+]
The device is coming at a time when the entire healthcare industry is actively investing in ways to deliver care in the convenience of patient’s homes. This is because patients are increasingly placing a value premium on ease of care—that is, receiving care not only in their own homes, but also on their schedule (on-demand) and on their terms. And now, as digital accessibility technologies have significantly improved, healthcare-at-home has become increasingly more feasible.
In fact, this phenomenon has significantly propelled the growth of companies such as Teladoc, which provide on-demand virtual care services through the convenience of a mobile device. Other supporting healthcare companies are also taking advantage of this boom. Take for example Labcorp, one of the world’s largest clinical laboratory networks. Recently, the company announced an entire array of “self-test” kits that can be used by patients at home to test for conditions ranging from colorectal cancer, to cholesterol levels and pregnancy.
This growing sentiment in healthcare is perfectly suited for household robots and smart devices such as Astro. With increasing advancements, not only will patients be able to use Astro for access to emergency services or to keep in touch with their families, but also to access digital and virtual health services.
Additionally, with the boom of artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced language learning models, Astro’s capabilities will only continue to improve in being able to solve increasingly challenging queries and requests. Amazon is investing billions of dollars into its SageMaker platform as a means to “Build, train, and deploy machine learning (ML) models for any use case with fully managed infrastructure, tools, and workflows.” Furthermore, the company’s Bedrock platform enables the “development of generative AI applications using [foundational models] through an API, without managing infrastructure.” Undoubtedly, Amazon has the resources and technical prowess to truly make significant strides in generative AI and machine learning, and will increasingly do so in the coming years.
Elon Musk, founder of Tesla. (Photo by JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images)
However, it is important to note that Astro is not the only gladiator in the arena. AI enthusiast and Tesla founder Elon Musk announced last year that Tesla is actively working on developing a humanoid robot named “Optimus.” The goal behind the project will be to “Create a general purpose, bi-pedal, autonomous humanoid robot capable of performing unsafe, repetitive or boring tasks. Achieving that end goal requires building the software stacks that enable balance, navigation, perception and interaction with the physical world.” Musk has also ensured that the bot will be powered by Tesla’s advanced AI technology, meaning that it will be an intelligent and self-teaching bot that can respond to second-order queries and commands. Again, with enough time and testing, this technology can be leveraged in a positive way for healthcare-at-home needs and many more potential uses.
This is certainly an exciting and unprecedented time across multiple industries, including artificial intelligence, advanced robotics, and healthcare. The coming years will assuredly push the bounds of this technology and its applications. This advancement will undoubtedly bring with it certain challenges; however, if done correctly, it may also empower the means to benefit millions of people globally.