Get a Robot to Help

Sebastian Thrun builds cars that drive themselves. In fact, the Stanford University scientist may do it better than anyone in the world: In 2005, his fully automated Volkswagen Touareg drove itself 212 kilometres across the Nevada desert in less than seven hours to claim a $2-million prize in an international robot off-road race.

He predicts that a fully robotic car for consumers is less than 20 years away. But, as Dr. Thrun understands with a personal, still-sharp grief, the aim here is higher than putting an ultra-cool set of wheels in wealthy people’s driveways: This is technology that could help save an aging population.

Last May, when his elderly father, who lives in Germany, caused a car accident, Dr. Thrun and his brother decided that they had to take away his driver’s licence. Their father was furious. Without his freedom, he simply faded away. In November, his sons moved him into a nursing home. By Christmas, he was gone.

“It was a very sad episode,” says Dr. Thrun, who still blames himself. “I caused it by deciding it would be unethical for my dad to drive.” Losing your independence is the nightmare of getting old: “It’s a human disaster when it happens.”

In Canada and across the industrialized world, growing numbers of people are staring at the fate of Sebastian Thrun’s father. According to the 2006 Census, released this week, one out of seven Canadians is now over the age of 65 – double the proportion half a century ago. Four million others are less than 10 years away from senior citizenship.

The resulting burden on a limited group of caregivers will be immense. Young adults will be too busy keeping the economy running to tend to ailing parents. And those parents – the wealthy, educated, super-mobile baby boomers – will expect to live in their own homes and drive their own cars until they are dragged into nursing care.

Their best hope may be the advent of robots who can serve as companions, nurses, drivers, household help and safety monitors for aging Canadians. And, luckily, robots are evolving just as fast as people are aging.

Bill Gates has said that the robotics industry today is on a similar threshold to where computers stood 30 years ago. By that standard, we might expect dishwashing, babysitting androids by mid-century.

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