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Asked by anon-257014 to Miguel, Freya, Arianna, Andrew_Y on 26 Jun 2020.
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Andrew Yool answered on 26 Jun 2020:
It’s not my specialism at all, but I’ll have a go.
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Yes, I can certainly imagine a future like you suggest. From my own experiences with my Dad, who had memory problems but was otherwise healthy, I can imagine an AI system that helps to actively manage daily tasks to keep people active and engaged. Via either audio (like Alexa) or vision (like Google Glass) an AI could help remind people of things to do – they could be chores around the house, taking exercise, or more fun things like calling remote family and friends. The system would learn to adapt to how capable a person was, and adjust depending on what activities they liked doing most. If it was clever enough – and I don’t think we’re near there yet – it could even act as a companion, perhaps helping with things that its designers didn’t think of but its owners needed.
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While we already have basic tools for managing our lists, we tend to have to do this actively ourselves. What I’m describing above would be an adaptive system (hence AI) to support people with impaired memory, so that they’re guided to do things that keep them safe, healthy and happy at home. Especially so when they live alone, or find themselves frequently on their own. While it’s no substitute for the company of another person, keeping someone active in the world, and probably helping to connect them to others, seems like a good way AI could help at least some of our elderly.
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Of course, if you stretch the definition of AI, most of us are already assisted by AI through services provided on our phones (like GPS navigation and algorithm-curated newsfeeds). But I don’t think that’s quite what you were getting at!
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Anyway, that’s just me thinking of an answer based on my own experiences. I hope it’s helpful.
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Comments
Andy commented on :
There’s two main types of AI: “Narrow AI” is an AI system which can only perform one specific task. We’re already living in a world full of Narrow AIs. For example, Siri/Alexa translates voice commands into actions, such as turning lights on/off or dialling a phone number. This could be really useful for people who have limited movement. The second type is “General AI”, which is the type of AI we usually see in the movies. It is able to learn to perform new tasks which it wasn’t explicitly taught about, and usually has a much bigger ability to make its own decisions. Expert opinion is divided over whether this level of AI is actually achievable.
Emma commented on :
There are a few ways AI is already being use to help older people, such as smartphone apps that use cameras and AI algorithms to monitor medication-taking, and will give an automatic alert if the meds are not taken properly.
A lot of older people have to take lots of different medicines each day (this is called polypharmacy) which may make it difficult to remember to take them all in the right does and at the right time.
This might not be the type of AI you are expecting, but like Andy said above, the AI we have at the moment is ‘narrow AI’ which can only do a limited set of tasks.
Katy commented on :
AI is also already used a lot to help people with visual and hearing impairments, for example translating speech to text (like the auto-captioning on YouTube). There is also software which can describe Instagram photos to users. And there are AI wearables currently being developed to describe surroundings to people who have difficulty seeing.