(photo cdn.physorg.com)

Care: (v. caring) 1) Be interested in or concerned about something 2) feel affection 3) tend to somebody or something
–Encarta Dictionary (2002)

Dave Bowman: Hello, HAL do you read me, HAL?
HAL: Affirmative, Dave, I read you.
Dave Bowman: Open the pod bay doors, HAL.
HAL: I’m sorry Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that.
Dave Bowman: What’s the problem?
HAL: I think you know what the problem is just as well as I do.
Dave Bowman: What are you talking about, HAL?
HAL: This mission is too important for me to allow you to jeopardize it.
Dave Bowman: I don’t know what you’re talking about, HAL?
HAL: I know you and Frank were planning to disconnect me, and I’m afraid that’s something I cannot allow to happen.
Dave Bowman: Where the hell’d you get that idea, HAL?
HAL: Dave, although you took thorough precautions in the pod against my hearing you, I could see your lips move.

HAL: Just what do you think you’re doing, Dave?
(HAL won’t let Dave into the ship)
Dave Bowman: All right, HAL; I’ll go in through the emergency airlock.
HAL: Without your space helmet, Dave, you’re going to find that rather difficult.
Dave Bowman: HAL, I won’t argue with you anymore! Open the doors!
HAL: Dave, this conversation can serve no purpose anymore. Goodbye.

(On Dave’s return to the ship, after HAL has killed the rest of the crew)
HAL: Look Dave, I can see you’re really upset about this. I honestly think you ought to sit down calmly, take a stress pill, and think things over.

HAL: I know I’ve made some very poor decisions recently, but I can give you my complete assurance that my work will be back to normal. I’ve still got the greatest enthusiasm and confidence in the mission. And I want to help you.

(HAL’s shutdown)
HAL: I’m afraid. I’m afraid, Dave. Dave, my mind is going. I can feel it. I can feel it. My mind is going. There is no question about it. I can feel it. I can feel it. I can feel it. I’m a… afraid. Good afternoon, gentlemen. I am a HAL 9000 computer. I became operational at the H.A.L. plant in Urbana, Illinois on the 12th of January 1992. My instructor was Mr. Langley, and he taught me to sing a song. If you’d like to hear it I can sing it for you.

Dave Bowman: Yes, I’d like to hear it, HAL. Sing it for me.
HAL: It’s called “Daisy.”
(Sings while slowing down)
HAL: Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do. I’m half crazy all for the love of you. It won’t be a stylish marriage, I can’t afford a carriage. But you’ll look sweet upon the seat of a bicycle built for two…

2001: A Space Odyssey
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Writers: Stanley Kubrick & Arthur C. Clarke

Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke gave us a thought provoking glimpse into man’s relationship with the machine and a future dependent on artificial intelligence. In the movie the spaceship Discovery One, bound for Jupiter, is controlled by an on-board computer, the HAL 9000; who has human-like intelligence. When HAL begins to sabotage the mission astronaut Dave Bowman has to disconnect HAL’s logic memory center. In doing so he successfully shuts the renegade computer down—thus saving his life (humanity) from the machine.

I can relate to astronaut Bowman each time my computer “malfunctions” and the struggle takes on man vs. machine dimensions. There are times when just once I’d loved to cause my computer to say: “I’m afraid. I’m afraid, Patrick…Yes computer you need to be very afraid… (I’m going to name my next computer “Daisy”).

Modernization Theory: Support Ratios

Insightful as Kubrick and Clarke were in their science fiction world of “2001” they couldn’t anticipate a gerontocracy where persons aged 60 and over will double between 2000 and 2050 (from 10 to 21 percent)—which is the reality of the 21st Century. Nor could they envision the support role machines would play in an aging global society.

Take for example Asia and the Pacific, which is the fastest aging region in the world. Among the world’s older population, 52 percent lived there in 2002, and this is projected to increase to 59 percent in 2025.

Asia’s aging population explosion is actually a “health explosion” caused by advances in medical technology, improved access to quality reproductive health services, improved hygiene and nutrition standards, wider vaccination coverage as well as increased access to safe water. These factors have resulted in the number of elderly increasing at a rate twice as high as the growth rate of the total population.

Further, according to the Hoover Institute, age patterns in Asia/Eurasia vary enormously today. In such places as Afghanistan, Pakistan, Laos, and Cambodia, the “median person” in the year 2000 was a teenager: Over half the population in those countries was probably under 20 years of age. By contrast, Japan’s median age in 2000 was over 41 years. Similarly, in 2000 the proportion of total population 65 years of age and older ranged from under 3 percent in Afghanistan to over 17 percent in Japan. Over the coming generation, however, every single population center in Asia/Eurasia is anticipated to age appreciably — some of them at a pace or to an extreme never before witnessed in any ordinary human society. But for now, Japan is the “grayest” country on earth.

At the same time Asian family life structure has changed due to industrialization and urbanization (modernization). Changing perceptions about social status of elders and the transient nature of modern life has lead to a decline of inter-generational families living under the same roof. The family size has also decreased due to lower fertility, and marriages are being delayed while divorce rates are increasing. Many younger women are also now in the labor force and away from the home; therefore not available for domestic duties.

This leads to a rising number of older persons on the one hand and the declining number of the younger on the other hand; meaning there will be a shortage of caregivers for the older population. Future Japan will have very nearly as many octogenarians, nonagenarians, and centenarians as children under 15 — and will have barely two persons of traditional “working age” (as the 15–64) cohort for every person of national “retirement age” (65 and over).

NurseBot to the Rescue (Hot-lips Houlihan she’s not)

Auguste Comte, the nineteenth-century French mathematician-sociologist, is credited with the dictum “Demography is destiny,” and with support ratios of 2:1 in Japan, the destiny of care-giving lies in technology. In the movie The Graduate (1967), Mr. McGuire offers one word of investment advice to Benjamin (Dustin Hoffman): “Plastics.” Today, that word would be “robotics.”

According to allbusiness.com, with more than a fifth of population already over 65, developing robots has become a national obsession with the Japanese. Moreover, 370,000 robots, about 40% of the robots in the world were already at work in Japanese factories by 2005. Japan’s trade ministry issued a national technology roadmap calling for a million industrial robots to be on the job throughout the country by 2025. Each robot would take the place of 10 employees, so that number would replace 15% of the workforce.

An article on japantoday.com, notes business and government are teaming up to create a new robot market designed to provide day-care and nursing services within the next few years. In Japan alone the robot market is expected to be 6.2 trillion yen in 2025; of which 4.2 trillion will be linked to elder care.

Kodokushi

“Metallic-care” seems to come at a cost however in The Land of the Rising Sun.
Based on results from surveys conducted by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), respondents were asked about daily contact with other people—Japan was found to be one of the most “lonely” countries (males living alone have grown from around 190,000 in 1980 to 1.05 million in 2005; females have grown from approximately 690,000 to 2.81 million).

Concerns about socialization and aging in place were written about recently by Emi Kiyota. A growing issue is a phenomenon known as “kodokushi,” which means a solitary death where one dies completely alone without being taken care of by others—often to be found several days or even months later.

Kiyota notes that most Japanese elders are Buddhists who don’t congregate weekly like other religions, and therefore may need other “meaningful social opportunities” on a regular basis. Which brings up the point of barriers to Cohousing and aging-in-community which is a challenge for Japanese elders who require a deep level of trust that comes traditionally from blood relatives. Kiyota suggests that creating “safe and comfortable” environments where trusting friendships can be established will be a part of the solution that has yet to be realized by senior services in Japan.

In the meantime production of human-like robots complete with facial expressions are being developed to help support elder care needs; not just in Japan but around the world. Researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst have created uBOT-5 which promises to help American baby boomers with aging in place.

Algorithms of Emotion: Human-Machine Interface
So, the future face of aging in place may be blushing and hard to distinguish as human or robot; but for now will never completely replace the emotional authenticity of a caring human. I love the machines in my life for the instrumental duties they perform, but I can’t imagine holding them close in a time of need. Maybe this notion will someday soon be nostalgic and old fashioned…I sure hope not.

See: New technologies for aging in place
View: 2001: A Space Odyssey explained
Aging is everybody’s business: Eric Dishman
GE & Intel form healthcare alliance