China builds robot friends for its ageing population
China is building an army of robot friends for its increasingly elderly population. The nation has over a quarter of the world's elderly and it is turning to artificial intelligence in what could be the world's largest experiment in robot companionship.
Qing Zhang was born in central China in 1929 in a village that didn’t have a single light bulb. Now, at the age of 88, she lives in a nursing home that’s using robots to help care for her.

The privately-owned Long Shan Nursing Home is one of a few dozen early testing sites for caregiving robots in China. The home has been experimenting with three robots since August 2016.

Doctors and nurses use two smaller robots, a bit like person-shaped rolling smartphones. They can track blood pressure and other basic health data, but also help residents video chat with their family or look at photos. The third robot is something completely different: a pink and white child-sized bot whose sole purpose is to keep residents company.