Baby Boomers and AI: A plea from a People's Panel on AI member

Here we have a guest blog from Margaret, a member of the People’s Panel on AI, with a plea following her experience and reflections.

The People’s Panel on AI experience was both stimulating and inspiring. I have continued to give great thought to the challenges of AI since returning home, and have spoken at great length (to anyone who would listen) about both the positive and negative aspects requiring consideration, as we move forward into a future increasingly dominated by machine learning. And I can see how easily the younger generation will absorb these advances into their daily lives, seamlessly adapting to ever changing patterns of behaviour in education, and the workplace, in healthcare and leisure to name but a few.

I consider my own grandchildren, proficient in the use of an i-Pad from a very early age, machine based learning will be second nature to them, they already can’t imagine life existed before the Internet! And of course they stand to benefit from bespoke tutorial packages, from better diagnosis of diseases, and improved techniques to combat them. In every way, their lives will be so different, from those of their parents, and certainly their grandparents. So, I would like to make an impassioned plea on behalf of the elderly population, using this platform to bring attention to a situation which is largely overlooked.

here are currently a vast number of us, result of a massive rise in the birth rate post World War 2, naturally we were all destined to grow old together, hence the current problems with social care and burgeoning health issues, the inevitable consequence of a top heavy population. Here we have an entire generation who have lived through decades of great change, who now often struggle to keep up with the fast paced rate of increasingly automated procedures, and to make sense of it all.

They remember the manual accounts, ledgers and card filing systems, they recall the pleasure of writing and receiving letters, of actual telephone calls (from landlines), verbal communication on public transport, and in small local shops … before everyone else became glued to a hand held device, seemingly no longer able to make eye contact!

I talk to many older people whilst working in a busy cafe, and I hear what they are saying … It’s now so difficult to access over the counter assistance with personal finances, the paying or querying of utility bills, the making of a simple doctor’s appointment, or the reissue of a prescription … as we are faced with the closure of local banks, post offices, even the smaller shops, and encouraged to conduct all our affairs on-line … a remote world minus all personal contact and friendly interaction … these changes to procedures are felt the most acutely by the elderly … we have taken away from them the element of choice, for them face-to-face contact will always be important.

As technology advances, how will they cope … are we prepared to educate them in their struggle to … for example, understand the concept of a “chatbot” or will they be left behind?

Many people of my acquaintance may still have potentially two further decades of life ahead (ironically due in part to amazing developments in AI based medical procedures). Do they deserve to spend these later years confused, frustrated and ultimately lonely, or can we find ways to gently ease them into this world of change, to share with them the hopes as well as the fears that they are experiencing, for a future which is theirs as well as ours?

I only ask that all those involved in major decision making (and we accept that progress will, and should, continue to forge ahead) stop occasionally and remember the senior members of society.