Rolando Rosas 4:07
I’m gonna give you a proper introduction. Welcome, like to just you want Arshia Dr. Khan. Professor, Professor, Khan you tell me how you want us to address you?
Dr. Arshia Khan 4:23
Whatever makes you feel happy? All right.
Rolando Rosas 4:27
I want to make it easier for you. Let’s see. Okay. All right. We may throw in a few different professor I love the professor title. Great. At some point, I thought I was gonna go into academics. When I studied psychology in Minnesota at Macalester, which is right in the Twin Cities. My pants. Yep. And my brother actually did his residency at the University of Duluth. He’s a surgeon now. And so he lives right in your backyard. Oh, shout out to my brother row row, sis, if you’re listening,
Dr. Arshia Khan 4:58
thank you for inviting I’m really excited to be on your podcast.
Rolando Rosas 5:03
Awesome. We’re glad to have you, you are in the field of technology. And so the first thing I want to know what technology right now are you geeking out on fascinates you, or it’s really just been bubbling up inside you that just can’t get your eyes off and hands off.
Dr. Arshia Khan 5:21
I think it’s the wearable, the wearable technology app can really change how we look at healthcare. And when you combine it with robotics, you can really enhance care. And it’s like totally thinking out of the box. Before the pandemic, people were not in sync with robotics. So against robotics, some people even commented, oh, you’re doing the devil’s work. But now I think since the pandemic, people have realized how useful robots can be. So one robots do not spread infection. Like very important. Yes, exactly. Especially if we are in hospital and nursing home settings, we do need bodies that will not spread the infection and robots. And we perfect for that. That’s an interesting point. Yeah, yes. And then when you add the wearable technology, where we can actually monitor a person, track their data, and be able to predict any kind of negative episode that they may have bad is taking technology, and combining it with medicine and offering medicine in a whole different world.
Rolando Rosas 6:40
I’m fascinated about this whole AI piece. And the robot, in this case, understanding the person that they’re working with, so that they can better respond, as well as understand what the patient or person that they’re interacting can go through. Before I really dive into that, in Will Smith’s world. The robots are conscious, they understand human emotion, they’re able to predict, like you saying, predict some of what a human may want or need. Is this a good thing? Or a bad thing?
Dr. Arshia Khan 7:14
It depends on what we try to use it for. If we try to use it to destroy somebody, then yes, it is a very bad thing. But if we take that same technology, and use it, for example, for an elderly person, who is feeling extremely lonely and isolated, you bring this robot there who can understand that person interact with that person, meet them, and recognize them remember their past remind them of their past. That would be an amazing thing for the people.
Rolando Rosas 7:49
Absolutely. I’ve seen your other interviews with Norah O’Donnell, where they were showing your robots and they were showing patients interacting with it. You said something to me that we can see for those folks that are watching on the video side of things, the interaction that’s happening with the elderly patient in the robot. But you said something to me that was fascinating a few weeks ago, that one of the things that surprised you about this was the trust level that the elderly have with robots. And that also surprised me, because what you’re saying we have here, and I think it may be more of a US cultural thing, versus like Asian countries where they’re like completely fully accepting robots into their lives. Here we have a skeptical kind of point of view, is it going to turn into Skynet? And they take over and take us out? But you said to me? No, it’s quite the opposite. The trust level is higher than even their own family members.
Dr. Arshia Khan 8:43
Exactly, exactly. Because when I take these robots out to the nursing homes, the residents at the nursing homes trust the robot, they have this sort of faith in the robot and the belief that the robot is not going to judge them and turn around and tell them what to do and what not to do. Yeah, absolutely love that. A couple of weeks ago, I was in a nursing home, and we were trying out some of our new applications. And before I could get the robot started with the application, the rest of them wanted to just sit and chat with the robot interest could not give up on chatting. For half an hour. She kept interacting with the robot. And then after a half hour I had to intervene and say, No, let’s give them a chance to do what it’s supposed to.
Dave Kelly 9:36
So in that, when that was happening is the robot is the AI that’s built into the robot. Is it learning about that resident?
Dr. Arshia Khan 9:43
At that point? It wasn’t it can be yes. But at that point, we were just waiting to get the program started.
Dave Kelly 9:52
Yeah. And do they warm up with a resident in a nursing home is the natural reaction. relatively positive like that? Well have the trust is there? Or was that a one off case where you were like, this is just unbelievable to me.
Dr. Arshia Khan 10:06
Before I got into this, my biggest fear was, I’m proposing this groundbreaking like, totally thinking out of the box thing. What if the people I’m designing this bar, do not accept it, that was my biggest fear. Surprise, they are so open minded. It’s amazing. You cannot believe it, how open minded they are, even though they’re coming from a generation where they haven’t been exposed to technology as much as we have. But the drive behind that is their loneliness. They are missing the social interaction, especially during the pandemic, even family members can go and visit,
Rolando Rosas 10:50
you couldn’t go everybody in a nursing home was isolated. And even as we got into the pandemic, they were still isolated, because they didn’t want people to go in and bring new infections.
Dr. Arshia Khan 11:01
Exactly. So now they have these robots that they can interact with, and sit and chat for hours. They just love it. They’re totally amused. They’re amused by how my robot can lead exercises, help them do yoga. There have been times when a person resident who hasn’t spoken up or interacted with anybody in years suddenly are interacting with the robot.
Rolando Rosas 11:29
Wow. And what happens with the staff, you bring this in? Obviously, this is not a common type of application in nursery homes or daycare or nursery care, what’s the staff reacting when they see this kind of reaction that you’re seeing patients that have been not speaking for years, now all of a sudden, they’re talking?
Dr. Arshia Khan 11:45
I have given my cell phone number to the staff members at these nursing homes where my robots are deployed, and they text me immediately. With pictures right away, and they are so happy. Absolutely. In CLOUD NINE.
Rolando Rosas 12:02
What kind of effect does that have on the morale because these are not glorious positions, right? The people taking care of our elderly, they’re not getting paid $100,000 to come in and take care of people, they get paid a lot less than what they should be. And sometimes they’re brought in as immigrants from other countries to do that, because nobody else wants to do that dirty work. What’s that morale? Have they told you what it’s like, after they’ve seen patients come to life? Maybe their spirits are better? What’s that, like with the staff there,
Dr. Arshia Khan 12:29
they are just so happy. It’s tremely happy beyond words, imagine they take the time to send me a text message saying this was the interaction, this is what just happened. And mind you this taking care of the robots is on top of what they’re supposed to be doing. It is actually helping them because let’s say if they take the robot, and we’ll leave the robot with the person and the robot is interacting, let’s say the robot is doing some kind of a dance for the person are telling jokes or whatever the different apps that we have, that relieves that caretaker for a few minutes, where they can either just go and relax, have a cup of tea, coffee, whatever, or even go in tend to the things that they need to do. Just a few minutes that they can get away from taking care of somebody that’s really good for mental and physical well being of people.
Dave Kelly 13:27
Sure, adapting new technologies. Sometimes it can be a long process, you have to learn about your new software, you have to train all of your people on it. It’s mundane. It’s very technical. it’s data driven. This is the type of technology that people can really get excited about when they know they’re going live that launch day must be a really exciting day. It’s almost like you’re adding a new employee to the staff. It’s like they’re coming in today. Today’s the day and let me ask what is their reaction, their initial reaction the staff, when they see this robot rolling
Dr. Arshia Khan 14:00
through? So I have been to so many different nursing homes, and most of the nursing homes, what I’ve seen is they have a countdown, literally counting down is going to be on site. And on the last day, they have the countdown by hours. Okay, we are going to have the robot within this 90 minute. Well, we’re excited. The residents get up early that day. They finish their breakfast early, and they are all dressed and ready to meet.
Rolando Rosas 14:30
And what’s that, like, you know, and you’ve probably done this numerous times. Those robots leave and they’re gone. What’s connected has on the folks that are left behind like the actual patients or is there some effect that happens afterwards positive or negative, as well as the folks that interact with that robot?
Dr. Arshia Khan 14:47
We need the robots there. Because this deployment is for monitor Healthcare Management and we have been deploying over eight different nursing homes of monarch and the After robots there are times when the residents actually one of me nearly first in their wheelchairs as I’m leaving, and wondering if I’m gonna take the robots barefoot. So they asked me literally asked me, I have to take the robots with you, can you please leave them with? No. Turn around and say, no, they’re yours now.
Rolando Rosas 15:24
Wow, wow, that’s terrific. You know, one thing you said to me, we’re talking about patients and then not wanting the robots to leave it mentioned to me that you can train the robots. And you said jokes, you’d even said that you get requests from? Because these folks are so lonely. They want you to train a robot to tell dirty jokes. Is that right? Yes. So
Dr. Arshia Khan 15:44
yes,
Rolando Rosas 15:48
that, to me shows a level of the depth of how they want to interact with a robot like this one thing to be like your birthday was three months ago, your daughter was so nice and such. But then when you’re getting really into, I want to have an ongoing conversation and tell me dirty jokes, I can laugh or whatever, or remember the past or particular place. It’s really speaks to the level of acceptance of that in somebody’s life. Yes. Well, when we’re talking about robots, I know that robotics in general, and the technology behind it is really not inexpensive technology, I would imagine you have a lot of work, a lot of interns, postgraduate folks that work in your department, work with you side by side, it takes an interdisciplinary approach who that’s a big word for me. Oh, yes. Listen to this. If you had somebody like Melinda Gates, or somebody else out there that says, Professor, I’m going to open up the checkbook, and I’m gonna let you do what you want to do. And take it wherever you want to take it, because this is great technology. What does that world look like? What could you do, where you had the funds to really go beyond where you are today?
Dr. Arshia Khan 16:59
Oh, my God, that, that would be amazing. First of all, I would go ahead and hire a lot more women, because one of the major things that I love doing is being an advocate for women. So typically, there’s about 18 to 20% women in computer science. But if you come to my lab, I have 50 to 60%. Women, that’s awesome. Because I recruit more women, and I can be a role model for them, they can look at me and say, if she can do it, I can do it. That’s awesome. Cool. So that was one thing I would love to do. Number two is, I would love to make these robots less expensive. Currently, I’m only focusing on developing ads and have a little bit of resources and pouring into designing a robot that is less than $10,000. So I don’t want to keep designing technology for the affluent people, I want to be able to make it affordable. So anybody should be able to afford it. Anybody living at home should be able to our robot. That’s where I want to see this technology go. That’s where I would put some of the money in, or some money into developing a robot that is less expensive, and affordable, and still has the same features as the ones that we are using currently.
Rolando Rosas 18:28
Alright, so if Melinda Gates or anybody else out there, that’s got that kind of pocket book, funding organization, nonprofit, or even for profit organization. Heck, somebody like Apple and Tim Cook could fund this is somebody like Google, they’re into this type of technologies as well, they could fund this. So if anybody at those organizations, who loves this type of work, wants to see it be in somebody’s home, hey, I would love an AI robot that can cook just like a Will Smith movie, if that’s possible, or I’ve been through this as well from being a caretaker, my mother in law and several other folks. And it’s very intensive when you have an older loved one. And there’s a lot of folks today that like you said, 10k, you ain’t got that kind of cash laying around, you can’t throw that around. And if it were to be more affordable, where it’s within reach of more of the average person to help facilitate it would turn people’s lives around or from a personal level. And I would imagine a business level being that kind of helper or assistant that can do like you said, those yoga that lead the yoga activities, tell jokes to patients, bring the morale of patients, it can slow down the effects of the memory loss. And I’d love for you to talk about that. I know you said you’re working on the data for it. You’re trying to get concrete numbers around that. But he can also have a tangible effect on the actual degeneration of the disease.
Dr. Arshia Khan 19:53
Yes, there are so many new things that I’m working on that I cannot really share right now. But these new things are going to take medicine in a new direction, awesome, you’re going to be able to diagnose, we are going to be able to offer so much more help, and therapy that you cannot imagine. And these things are coming up. If I had additional funding, instead of sitting at every night, and working until like midnight, every day writing grants, I feel like that’s all I do, I should call myself a grant writer. But if I had those resources, then I can pour my time into developing more of those things. But we have some really big things coming up very slow, and that are going to help not only people who have been recently diagnosed with dementia, but people who are in their advanced stages. So most of the research that is being done is for early to middle stages. But what I am working on currently, the new things that I’m working on for advanced stage dementia, well know that the purpose is to slow down the decline. Of course, we cannot reverse it, it’s not possible. But if we can slow down the deadline by using technology, and we can do it, that’s the biggest thing we can do it it’s technology can be used for that. And so I think that, if we can do it, it will be amazing. Change the world, it will change the worlds Yes.
Dave Kelly 21:32
So what I’m very interested in is the value that this brings not only to the patient, but their loved ones that are there helping with them, some of my folks are getting older. And sometimes my father might get a little bit confused about what’s going on that day, and my mother only have so much patience. And then my mom will call me up and then we’ll talk and she’ll tell me about dad, and she’ll share the story. And then you can hear it in her voice. So when we were introduced to you and I started reading about some of the work that you’re doing, I’m just thinking about the benefits of the other people that human interaction was someone that is suffering from dementia, it can be very frustrating. And leaving that from the patient, and also to the caretaker, and then having that absorbed by the robot. I never thought about that before. And you really opened up my eyes. And I just think that’s a wonderful thing that’s happening here.
Dr. Arshia Khan 22:25
That there’s more Dave, we have actually discovered a biomarker for memory recall, in my lab. So Neaton, actually, we are working on trying to reverse engineer that. So we can aid with memory recall. But while this requires a lot of human power, and a lot of resources, so
Rolando Rosas 22:47
Melinda Gates and others who’ve got those big foundations, actually, Melinda Gates Foundation funds, women in tech, she’s really big into that. And believe it or not, she’s announced something to do in this whole care economy, which is what your technology would also fall under. So if anybody that knows her, or that is out there wanting to help the professor in her work, maybe hit her up. I don’t know her personally. But I know that there are people probably in our circle that do now the plug for that. But there’s something about robots, if we’re talking tech now and you’re putting them in a business environment, let’s talk about business. I would love to know when these robots are out there and you leave them there. Are they all networked to each other or back to at center where you administer them or follow them or update them? Or are they just stand alone, autonomous right now with the assistance of maybe somebody locally, they’re moving them around all that stuff.
Dr. Arshia Khan 23:41
So currently, the way they are running these robots, they are connected to our server that is secure on our university site. So all the data is live streaming to our server through the robot. So we are not storing anything on the road. Currently, we are trying to stick to the HIPAA rules and be very mindful of that. And that’s what is happening. But the robots are not interacting with each other at this point, because we only have two robots at each nursing home. One one in one small one. But as we start to add robots, yes, they will be interacting. It’s very cute. If you come to my lab, you will see I have lots of robots in there.
Rolando Rosas 24:26
Behind you. Can you show us show it to us? Yes, we have one behind you. And I thought I saw another one on the site earlier.
Dr. Arshia Khan 24:33
Yes. This one over here. Oh, look at him. Yeah, it’s a little guy. Chillin, asleep mode. No. And then there’s another little guy over there. And these are the smaller ones. So I have larger robots as well. But these ones are very expressive in their body language. So we use them for yoga. They do dance. They are extremely Cute. You can see how cute they are. You know?
Dave Kelly 25:04
It is cute. How can a robot be cute? Cute supposed to be for cats and dogs? But how was that so cute?
Dr. Arshia Khan 25:10
These are cute. I’m
Rolando Rosas 25:13
Dave, you have to accept that they’re cute. If not, Professor Khan will come out with her boxing gloves and make you understand this you I know. She told me she’s she boxes to take out stress. So don’t make her get her boxing gloves out and do a little Canelo Alvarez on you.
Dave Kelly 25:34
Don’t you don’t create a battle bot.
Rolando Rosas 25:41
Wow, it’s just all amazing. And the reason I asked you about the networking of the robots is that I would imagine that you’re putting several of these and you said they’re streaming because we’re a tech company. And we work with other tech companies. And exactly in that area networking, if they don’t have the sufficient bandwidth, and they start getting 23456 Specially, I would imagine a larger facility, they may not have the data coming in in real time and could cause some interruptions for the robots to work. So it’s important, I would imagine, but to have the right backbone and to have the right bandwidth. And the like you said the security so the data stays secure.
Dr. Arshia Khan 26:20
Yes, and the thing is, when we first went to the first facility, we realized that the internet service that they had there wasn’t sufficient for our robots to do what we wanted to do. But Molnar took the initiative to fix that. So that helped us actually nursing homes. Also Additionally, in addition to us, the residents also appreciate that. So we need the sufficient bandwidth, and the right network, because we are live streaming data, especially physiological data from the robots. And if we cannot get that consistency in our data, our error algorithms will not be able to work properly will not be able to predict what’s gonna happen, and everything will just shut down. So it’s really important for us to have the right network and the right, and we’ll actually get very disappointed when they see that the robot is not able to do what it’s supposed to be doing.
Rolando Rosas 27:23
Oh, my goodness. So you’ve built the expectations after a time. Yeah, nice. I love that. Love that. You know,
Dave Kelly 27:32
I’m just thinking here, we showed a couple of little clips of your robots and action and couldn’t get enough of it, put an immediate smile on my face, watching the robot and watching them interact with the resident to get more eyeballs on it. So I’m thinking about the cute factor. So people love dogs, people like cats, people might really think that these are so cute and picturing a tick tock page. I’m picturing just tick tock videos and going viral and millions of videos. You want exposure. I haven’t seen robots on social media so much on tick tock or on YouTube shorts. I think we got something here real well on low.
Rolando Rosas 28:10
Yeah. Yeah. It’s funny, Dave, because the professor and I talked a couple of weeks ago, I was sitting back and maybe you have one of those graduate students together. Maybe they can eke out an hour or two a week that you can given say, hey, look, you got a lot of footage of you and the robots and the patient’s discus. Throw these on tick tock right now. Every day, put one or two clips, just 2030 seconds today, or even how your folks are doing the research. You will pay dividends it there’s good ROI in that especially in your area. There aren’t a ton of clips or footage of robots interacting with humans in this way.
Dr. Arshia Khan 28:49
Yeah, actually embedded robots they do a really good job of that than say, some of those dances actually I should put it on the tick tock I try
Dave Kelly 29:00
and get them to dance. I remember off the program and do a lot of this
Rolando Rosas 29:06
or this or this you know, you just have to put on a little bit of music and um
Dr. Arshia Khan 29:15
try and see if this little guy will dance. I
Rolando Rosas 29:18
don’t know. Let me see let’s let’s see some of that have loaded
Dr. Arshia Khan 29:21
the software on it. Oh, you know, I can go to my lack. If that works for you.
Rolando Rosas 29:27
Sure. We’re here for you. You’re in one of my labs. You can see we have lots of robots you look at them Oh Mecca ran out the robot. Yeah. I’m getting ready. I’m getting ready. getting in the mood and warming up. Here you can see Yeah, yeah, okay dance off. Okay I’m ready.
Awesome,
Dave Kelly 31:14
all right. Well, I know
Rolando Rosas 31:19
what was a good show Rolando. All right, I’m available for bar mitzvahs and birthdays if you need me. Oh my goodness, what? Listen, one of the other things that we talked about professor was how these robots are working in these facilities. You talked about your research? What’s in the near future? What’s in store? What’s down the road the next 12 to 24 months? What are you looking forward to doing with your robots,
Dr. Arshia Khan 31:51
the next few months, actually, I’m really looking forward to taking my robots to neurology clinics, there are neurologists from Michigan who are very keen on using my robots. So that’s where they’re going next. So they are going to be helping neurologists taking care of the people with dementia. Wow,
Rolando Rosas 32:15
that is serious stuff. People that work with the brain, you know, we got to have you back in because I’m really fascinated, I am fascinated by the brain behavioral sciences, and how the brain works. There’s so much we know and then a ton we don’t we and this type of technology being used and deployed and applied in the way you’re doing it with the smart sensors with the networking only has room to get better to grow. But to get cheaper, as you said, get the cost down. I’m really fascinated, I’m looking forward to where you can take this, I really am. And maybe I send my brother who’s not far from you and drop in and maybe take a robot from you because, you know, fascinated, maybe we can use it ourselves there
Dr. Arshia Khan 32:56
Rolando, I would love to come back in four to five months, and talk about the new things that I’m going to be deploying.
Rolando Rosas 32:56
Awesome, whenever you’re ready, you’ve got my information, you know how to hit me up? Sure. What we also want to do is highlight where people can get a hold of you. If somebody wants a deployment of a fleet of these in our nursing home or throughout our entire health facilities. How should someone get a hold of you for that?
Dr. Arshia Khan 33:21
They can email me and my email is akhan@d.umn.edu. I’m gonna put it in the chat here. Okay.
Rolando Rosas 33:37
All right, can we show her University of Minnesota page as well. So for those folks that are following us on video, they can also see that and see some of the resources and information that she’s got there or I’ll cue that up. And so for folks that are going to be watching this on video, you can see Professor Khan and all her work or resources or studies. The research she’s done where she’s been featured, you can get a hold of her at University of Minnesota Duluth, go champ the Bulldog. Right. Interesting little corner of the country, great part of the world. I would imagine right now getting cold at this time of the year.
Dr. Arshia Khan 34:16
It is getting cold actually, it was some degrees this morning and it smells like two degrees.
Rolando Rosas 34:22
We live in my old home store my second home state and I gotta tell you, I do not miss that. Basically, I’ve six months of the winter from October all the way through even when I was in college. It snowed the last week of May. Yes. No. I cannot believe it should not snow anywhere in this country in the last week of May.
Dr. Arshia Khan 34:46
Yes, it was snowing this morning. It was snowing last night. It was snowing yesterday morning. So the grounds are white.
Rolando Rosas 34:54
Just that alone should merit more more funding into what you’re doing. Maybe creative robots that can create nice warm temperatures in the office there.
Dr. Arshia Khan 35:04
Yeah, I have so many robots in my lab that when I ran all of them they had beloved just pizza.
Rolando Rosas 35:11
Imagine the reminds you probably of your youth being in India. Well, that warmth there.
Dr. Arshia Khan 35:17
Yes, it sure.
Rolando Rosas 35:20
But yeah, we got to be mindful of the professor’s time. We want to respect her time today. We are going to have her on for a second time as we’ve extended that invitation to her. Excellent.
Dave Kelly 35:30
We’ve been speaking with Dr. Arshia Khan. If you’ve enjoyed this episode, go check out our earlier episodes in here with Tara Campbell Lussier has to say about cultivating an equitable environment for caregivers. That episode you can check out at circuitloops.com
Rolando Rosas 35:47
Awesome, Dave, and today’s episode, you can watch that, or listen to it all on circuitloops. We appreciate you watching us today. And if you’re watching us on YouTube, I’ve got a couple of other episodes that are very helpful and enlightening. So go and check those out. I will see you in those episodes
Outro 36:14
thanks for listening to What The Teck? Be sure to check out our other episodes featuring awesome tech and amazing guests. Find them on circuitloops.com or wherever you consume your favorite podcasts.
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