During the toughest phase of the pandemic, who more who less could taste loneliness. Either because of having to spend the day without company, or because the excessive coexistence in a small space led him to discover other types of isolation. But, beyond that exceptional period, it is evidence that loneliness is a virulent epidemic in contemporary society.
The Society section today addresses the issue of isolation. According to a survey, there are 192,000 people in Spain over the age of 70 who have no one to talk to, out of a total of 1.7 million who live alone. And nothing points to a solution. The fall in fertility means that more and more people without children –the main link after a certain age– reach old age. All in a context in which technology is eliminating from the job market people with whom the elderly used to interact, in shops, banks or public services.
In the cities, where this crisis worsens, policies can be developed that favor the socialization of the elderly. In Barcelona, ??for example, this function is fulfilled by the municipal markets, the network of libraries or the new pedestrian areas with a profusion of public banks. But don’t be fooled. These are useful and necessary initiatives, but insufficient, given the magnitude of the crisis.
The ground is ripe for the sorcerer’s apprentices who control the popularization of artificial intelligence (AI) to establish themselves as the solution to the problem. The remedy will then come from the (metallic) hand of robots trained to give endless chatter to the elderly, watch if they fall and check that they take their medication, while a robotic pet caresses their leg.
There is a guy who sells AI dogs who claims that his bugs, easier to care for than the real ones, are an alternative “to the psychotropics that turn the elderly into zombies.” Assistive robotics – very useful when used as a complement to human care – is already on the market.
Authors like Kazuo Ishiguro ( Klara and the Sun ) or Ian McEwan ( Machines Like Me ) have addressed the painful transition between fully human civilization and the one that will hybridize with robots. His novels are not lazy summer readings.
