part of the string today we are forcing your product in the supermarket one day. now aging it happens to all of us a study by the national institutes of health us organization found the world older population is growing at an unprecedented rate today eight point five percent of people around the world are sixty five and over that percentage is projected to jump to nearly seventeen percent by twenty fifty and with aging comes a decrease in mobility and other health issues all of which can mean a loss of independence but could technology solve that problem joining us to talk about this we have alex. he is a professor of biomedical engineering at the university of toronto and also scientific director at age well that's a government funded organization creating real world solutions for seniors and care gave us so professor. what do you think is the most important part of what you're doing right now when you've been trying it out and testing it the older

population test subjects what are they loving right now that you can tell us about . you know i think you know the most important their love right now is the possibility of remaining independent in their own homes and communities for as long as possible and that's really kind of the end goal here it doesn't matter you know whether we're testing a low tech device or a high tech device to money it's not support that we're trying to provide to our seniors and also support to their families who are at their wits and trying to provide care often perhaps across the country and the technology really is providing an opportunity for them to provide this care and to support their loved ones as much as possible so professor we had a series of tweets from tommy and tommy jean b. and has out simas and he says he told us too many things developed and that it is expected that people living with disabilities will adapt to the technology not the other way round expecting a person living with dementia to adapt to their views that can affect how keen they

elton's the technology how are you approaching his how you are getting people with disabilities with the aging issues how you can even write down at the beginning yeah then the net is a critical aspect of why many past technologies have failed to really provide that support so what we're doing in major well with our researchers and our students and our partners is really teaching them how do and gauge seniors and caregivers right at the get go we're not really looking at seniors and these individuals as you know kind of time that a token older person has are your project but really making them an equal part of the research and development team that's been a real critical aspect of our network which as a result and some really fascinating technologies moving towards the marketplace you have a lab could have a bit of a picture if you have to put a video can't spin what we're seeing when we put me up on the screen going to right now and we can see what we've got there in the house what we're looking at here yeah so this is our home lab here in toronto based on

a rehab institute and this is essentially a fully simulated house so it allows us to develop. and to test our technologies in as much as a realistic environment is possible and what you saw there was one technology that's being developed where using sensors that are built into that sofa we're actually able to get a light e.c.g. from that individual and therefore get its heart rate and other physiological primers without the person having remembered that advice on how to figure out how to push the buttons or having to understand exactly how the technology works they can go about their daily business their daily activities and we can collect those types of information to one hand on twitter says populations eighty. focus in technology and coaching adapted approaches to health care engagement so that's a good point absolutely and that's a critical aspect that we're trying to look at we're trying to address you know not just different cultures but you know the population of the currently have your for example in canada we have a wide variety of various types and minorities language spoken in

a dish we also have our indigenous communities we have our normal communities as well that we're looking at and see how can technology play a role to connect with healthcare services but also to help them remain in their own community as long as possible as well. i know people trying to imagine what kind of work you are doing and that is a little thirty s n h well of a gentleman making a cup of tea now we his face for his privacy but i'm just going to show people the sort of things it like you have a look at this. what's going on there professor alex yes that's a that's a key project within our network in here in trying to look at the role of robots in

the home how can we use robots to provide support in care to all the adults who may have dementia or alzheimer's disease for example so that video you saw there was actually an individual with a lot of words so it's a real client that we work with and the robot there is providing the prompts are required to complete basic activities of daily living whether it's making a cup of tea brushing your teeth getting dressed or using the toilet and you know the point of these robots are not to replace the caregivers not to replace the family support or contact but to provide the support when the family cannot be there to provide the support during those private and embarrassing activities like using the washroom where we've heard for many older adults with dementia and their families that it's just such a difficult situation to be and so technology can alleviate some of that that's what we're really after here i fess alex we're talking about the future and what the future can bring us and intend to technology talking about next all to feel intelligent sit tight because we've got a video coming out from will bailey of the united kingdom is also working to help

older people live independent lives here his thoughts on using tech to help people outside the home independent living doesn't just rely on innovations i'm lacking the confidence to travel can cause isolation so while the world of assistive technology is moving fast we still missing innovation which assists independent travel for the elderly and those with dementia thanks or is the key if we use that to better understand vulnerable travelers we can provide highly passing on information to remove the unknown from the stress of travelling or working with the n.h.s. in the u.k. on a travel assistance platform which identifies real wild stress points in any journey i'm on it is the journey itself to provide real time we find. and joining our discussion on ai another alex alex he's a technology leader futurist and co-author of the driver in the driverless car good to have you here alex to alex's that's going to be a challenge i could do some ai just to help me out here so alex in every day life that we may not be aware of what would you say what would you.

so there's just going to be many many pieces that are rolling out in the next year even that will change our lives dramatically in the u.s. we're about to enter an era of driverless cars and those are essentially powered by by machine learning systems that have learned how to drive learned all of the risks of the road and now can operate autonomously the way humans used to operate or the way humans still do operate and i want to add also that this is a technology that will probably benefit the other as well because it will significantly augment their capabilities for mobility and getting around you know other types of ai that i think will start to see much more in the very near term and we're seeing in things like media for example the washington post last year wrote eight hundred fifty articles that were generated by an artificial intelligence system. a certain types of research around very structured data so for

example sports box stores scores or election results or corporate results and i can write that and convey that information very easily internet into an article or even potentially a video. i also believe that in the coming year we're going to see a lot more that will assist us in our finances so we're already seeing bots that will advise us whether when we spent too much or will warn us if something funny is happening in our accounts and again that is also something that could help the aging tremendously because they're very often a target of fraud so some sort of system that warns when something untoward is happening and maybe tell their loved ones it could have a dramatic impact in helping people who are older of void fraud and avoid getting ripped off to just want to change and you want to ask alex about. well how do you deal with. you know and i think the thing that we all need to consider you know

right from the experts and i like alex to those who are applying it in the aging population like an age well is no. understanding you know what it when is the right time for ai to be applied you know when do we need devices in systems that truly are you know intelligent and can be adaptable versus you know one is enough just to use a very simple device that may not use any i whatsoever so i think that's a key thing that we've always been struggling with the other aspect as well is you know some of his thoughts around you know ethics and social cost of using items and secondly it's a well i stand any broad driverless cars as an important one in and while i agree to drive those cars you know it can have a very strong impact on older adults are many ethical and social issues we need to understand so for example you know maybe thirteen years call a taxi service or a driving service because they require assistance from the driver to get in and out of the car or to transport their bags into the trunk of the car into their home but if a car shows up without any driver in it what's going to happen those situations are these are all things that you know they should you need to really consider moving

forward at questions alex the optics do you ever think about that are you just thinking about the science. you have pics are a tremendous component of this because i mean really when we're taking care of our loved ones who are older it's a question of you know are we giving them some of our log when we're spending time with them as is humans and at the same time as a society it's pretty clear that we have refused to put an economic value on that time i mean in the us at least caregivers are wildly underpaid there's a shortage of them it's dirty dangerous work high injury rates so at least in terms of looking at the market the verdict is in that you know it may be the ethical path would be much more human interaction with people as they age but it's just not happening so we need to think really hard about how we can give people who are aging what they need you know to survive and thrive and i think that professor

alex's point it's actually going to be a spectrum of things which will see you know some maybe fully i and robotics some maybe some of the services we're seeing now where there's actually a human being that is interacting with an elderly person by a tablet and they may be working remotely and watching what's happening not every minute but when there's activity or if they hear a noise or if they get a question so i think you'll see a pretty wide spectrum but at the very core of it i think that i will start to challenge our ideas of what is human what is ai and how to merge i mean in some ways ai can be better africa than humans imagine for example the my lai massacre where if that had been robots and we had said don't shoot women or children full stop that probably that wouldn't happen so it's just a really new i that's a quite terrifying the idea of robots in war being deciding who they're going to kill and who they're not going to kill the baby at that scary point he's just on twitter justice says i wonder if there's any measure of finding out how much

a i could benefit society and how much it could damage society if still so used incorrectly. it's a fabulous question i don't think there's any real measure i think that looking at how much for your ai has instilled in some of the berry smart people including you on mosque stephen hawking bill gates all of them are afraid of superhuman they are an ai that's much smarter than us and what impact that could have i also think that to professor alex's point it can erode the little bits of interactions which make us human and make the wife rich and work a living so i think it's something we have to look at very very clearly and with my eyes wide open at the same time it's important understand we've been existing with oil for quite a while yet when you get a credit report or a mortgage there's an ai system algorithmic in the background that's analyzing you when you're surfing the internet and ads are served to you and there's

a i interacting with it so i mean to a large degree we're already in the world it's more just that's not sircar's than in our in our faces is it's going to be the future and we've just been syfy into the conversation sophia is the first to have gained citizenship in saudi arabia she was developed by dave hanson have had some very well takes and he's on the child to jimmy fallon in the us haven't oh well jimmy would you like to play a game of rock paper scissors robot style. ok let's get this game going show me your hand to start rock paper scissors shoot. i was just. trying to dominate you think you know.

just kidding yeah. you are incredible it's so nice to me is a fia thank you jimmy friend me on facebook i. got the engaging gaspé down for us alex i'm just wondering well what the role of robots like sophia might be. taking. having. me yeah i think robots are going to play a significant role in providing support and care and in ongoing stimulation told are adults moving forward however you know research has shown though that you know we do not need robots not sophisticated looking and you know having a robot may just be as simple as having a screen on top of the top of a moving base may just be enough that and even when we talk to older adults who have even quite moderate or severe alls aren't these they don't realize what they're dealing with they're all realize they're interacting with some kind of machine and so china hide that fact by making news robots look more and more human and act more more human and actually not be the answer more of the way forward and

even how to talk to more sophisticated robots are quite cost prohibitive about as we all know as well so you know something like that we just saw in that clip i don't see playing a role any time soon in the home of an older adult but a simple robot i can see happen in the next several years i've got a little bit of cynicism half in the you chief audience that never happens miss a sentence says i heard this story thirty years ago alex what makes this technology feasible ai has been oversold over the hands in the last few moments is that chad what would you say to push back. so first of all you're correct this technology has been oversold on the other hand the last ten years have seen dramatic improvements in key facets of ai boyce recognition speech recognition conversational capability things that are really crucial to interacting with people who are elderly and we'll make it a much better experience today than it was. could have been ten fifteen twenty years ago there's a confluence of things that have brought that about

a lot more data to train artificial intelligence systems much cheaper system better connectivity we didn't have tablets that could connect wirelessly anywhere in the world and. so i think that the professor i would push back there's i sat right there and alex will write the end of the show i've got one more comment hafe and b.b. online he says impressive the feature now thank you to all of gas and if you have thoughts so ideas. to tweet us the new chief on facebook until the next time i see your night to catch.

right. the sam's in archaeology graduate from iraq he's also a part time going to billings pergamon museum which includes a reconstruction of the famous ishtar gate in babylon most of the people he's showing around came to germany as refugees this is just one of several billion museums taking part in the project called the meeting point and as well as bringing people together one of its aims is to emphasize the contribution of migrants right

up to the present day to western culture of the same language he had been because i've been here for some time i can help them with lots of things that mrs ford to me the great thing is it's not just about museums about forming a new life here and part of life is culture. facing realities growing up went to do you realize that you were living in a special place a so-called secret city getting to the heart of the matter why ease activists to live in jail just because she expressed herself hear their story on and talk to al-jazeera at this time.

hello there i'm julie macdonald in london the top stories here on u.s. warplanes have pounded the last rebel on klav near syria's capital for a fifth straight day it's one of the fiercest air assaults in seventy years of civil war and the u.n. says a thirty day truce is necessary to prevent a massacre in east and that's.