What should robots do for us?

Robots have great potential for assisting the old and disabled (not to mention the rest of  us) .  But if you’re developing one of these devices, where do you start? What kind of assistance you should concentrate on providing?

Young Sang Choi and buddies from the Healthcare Robotics Lab at Georgia Institute of Technology have worked it out for us. They asked a group of people suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Stephen Hawking’s condition) what they most wanted a robot to be able to fetch for them.

Here are the top five requests (out of 43)…

1. TV remote
2. medicine pills
3. prescription bottle
4. glasses
5. cordless phone

Seems sensible to compile a list like this. Other notable entries:  14 cellphone, 21 keys, 36 wallet, 38 drinking can (drink not specified)

Does such a list exist for able-bodied  people? And if not, what should be on it?

Ref: arxiv.org/abs/0902.2186: A List of Household Objects for Robotic Retrieval Prioritized by People with ALS