Christmas shopping season is upon us, which means crowded malls and tons of annoying kiosk merchants out hawking their trick helicopters and creepy ball weasels.
But now there's a whole new mall kiosk dropping: the Carepod.
The Carepod is the brainchild of Adrian Aoun, and according to him, it's the future of medicine. Imagine going to the mall, locking yourself into this little box, and having a robot AI give you a check-up.
Aoun says,
Slowly but surely we're just migrating every single thing from doctor and nurse to hardware and software. In fact, we don't even believe a doctor's office should exist.
Given all the fun stories we've featured here of AI trying to kill people and sometimes succeeding, I can only imagine all the ways this idea could go wrong.
However, Auon's painting of his service as AI healthcare is a little hyperbolic.
For one thing, it isn't legal for AIs to prescribe medications, treatments, or therapies. Those sorts of activities require a licensed professional, and that means that every visit will also be attended by a real-life doctor, virtually.
The best the AI is going to offer is taking vitals like blood pressure and maybe pinprick blood draws, but even that last one will be pretty sketchy at a mall.
"Behind-the-scenes, it's sending your data to doctors that work for Forward that are kind of 24/7 sitting in front of screens," said Aoun.
So, it's pretty much a regular doctor's visit but virtual at a mall.
Still, Auon's company has managed to raise $100 million in funding in its last investment round, which he says they are going to use to put 25 pods in malls in San Francisco, New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia.
So, now you'll have to worry about going to your doctor's visit with the homeless guy who moved into the pod last week.
It all seems completely worth the $99 per month subscription fee.
Of course, if you're seeing the doctor for fear of "being buried alive in a box," well, maybe this isn't the choice for you.
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