Meet the Floating Robot Companion Designed for Safe, Friendly Human Interaction (CNET article with video)

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10. I'm very familiar with taking care of people with dementia, having taken care of my mother for years at

home, then helped when she was in an Alzheimer's ward when she could no longer be cared for at home. Saw a lot of patients with dementia, some with early-onset Alzheimer's. I don't for a second believe any of them would have welcomed a balloon following them around so they could be spied on, even though they'd usually be fine with friendly human helpers.

And assuming the floating bot could talk to the person it was following around, too, it would most likely be using generative AI, which can hallucinate. So it would be quite capable of telling the human it's spying on that someone or something was harmless when they weren't, or dangerous when they weren't.

Someone who gets lost outside or might not be careful in the kitchen needs human caretakers, not a balloon bot. Especially when it would be using a type of AI that might give them wrong directions and assure them they'd turned the stove off when they hadn't.

I can easily imagine nursing home managers and owners caring only about profits thinking floating spy bots might let them fire more human aides.