Underprivileged Geeks

A Day in 2040

Karin dreams about walking along a beautiful tropical beach somewhere in South-East Asia when an unpleasant noise wakes her up at 8:00 am. Annoyed by the sound, she finds herself in her small one-bedroom apartment in a prefabricated construction on Cologne’s outskirts. Since her alarm clock broke last year, she has found neither time nor money to buy a replacement. Therefore, ALI, her smart speaker, also serves as an alarm. ALI mumbles the current temperature and a few other facts in English. A German discounter supermarket had promoted ALI a few years ago. At the time, Karin was very keen on buying her first smart assistant. Karin was disappointed when she realized that she couldn’t change the language settings and wouldn’t be able to use all functionalities due to her limited English skills. “All this talk about NLP, and I still can’t change the language settings,” she thinks. Technology companies had learned over the years that many people around Karin’s age were keen on using technology; they just could not afford it. Therefore, manufacturers started selling cheap solutions to the mass market. Nonetheless, Karin understood the essential information, including her appointments for the day: she will see the doctor in the afternoon and visit Charlotte, for whom she works as a “granny-nanny”.

After getting ready for the day and injecting herself with insulin, Karin goes to the small kitchen, as instructed by her smartphone. Her smart fridge proposes her a breakfast: wholegrain oat flakes with low-fat yogurt and berries. Even though Karin eats this meal frequently, she appreciates the acceptable taste at a low cost. Moreover, it is well suited to her diabetes. For most of her life, Karin did neither take care of her diet nor her physical health and consequently developed diabetes type 2 when she turned 52. Now, 20 years later, she lives a lot healthier but must cope with the consequences of her illness.

While eating her breakfast, Karin watches the news. As usual, the primary coverage is on climate change. The German government has hit a new spending record trying to counteract its effect, which has triggered demonstrations against these decisions. Karin notices that many of the people participating in the protests are her age. She has a slightly different view on it. Of course, Karin recognizes that the billions spent on fighting climate change could be used to raise pensions. Thus, narrowing the growing wealth gap, especially prevalent among the elderly. However, she also has a 35-year-old daughter, Sarah, who she loves more than anything. For decades, Karin has worried that climate change would adversely affect her daughter’s future. Therefore, she is grateful that the government is finally taking a climate-first approach in its decisions. While sinking deeper into thoughts about the society and the future, a vibration on her shoulder draws her attention – for the second time today, her thoughts are interrupted by technology. It is time to prepare for her doctor’s appointment. The autonomous public bus will fetch her in 30 minutes.

The autonomous bus safely takes Karin to a large, centrally located health center without any traffic congestion. As always, her health file is automatically read out by a robot at the reception as soon as she enters. The health center has two waiting rooms; the first, on the left, is large and crowded. To the right, there is a comfortable lounge-style waiting area.

A physician aid receives the patient in front of her and guides him to the right. A robot guides Karin to the left, where all seats are already occupied. Karin frequently schedules virtual consultations since she prefers to avoid long bus rides. Still, this time, an in-person visit was inevitable since she did not buy the latest virtual-reality glasses. In the clinic, assistant robots run through the aisles carrying blood samples, equipment, and even patients on stretchers. On her way to the treatment room, Karin accidentally gets in the way of one of the robots, which skillfully detects her and swerves. When she enters the room, the doctor has already opened Karin’s digital medical record and discusses her medical test results with her. Finally, he hands her multiple brochures about the additional, most costly, services the clinic offers. “An artificial pancreas?” she exclaims baffled. “Indeed, it would make frequent insulin injections unnecessary”. “Unfortunately,” the doctor continues, “the surgery is not covered by your health insurance, and you would have to pay it yourself.” Karin is a little disappointed after the meeting. Over the years, the number of services covered by her insurance plan has declined dramatically. Her pension already barely covers her rent and living expenses, and recently she received the grim news about her retirement subsidy not being increased this year. Her husband had saved and invested a few thousand Euros, but the returns remained below expectations. As she is waiting for the bus, her digital assistant reminds her of the call with her daughter later. Maybe her daughter could help her, covering the cost of the procedure the doctor proposed.

When she arrives back home, her smart home phone notifies her of an incoming call. Karin picks up the phone - it is her daughter. After exchanging pleasantries, Karin quickly updates Sarah on her recent doctor’s appointment. After chatting for a while, Karin finishes the call since she has to leave for her “granny-nanny” job in a few minutes. Every day, Karin goes to an older woman to look after her and earn some extra money. While walking from her house to the bus station across the suburbs, Karin recalls her apartment at the center of Cologne, where she used to live with her husband. Unfortunately, after her husband died, Karin could not afford it anymore and moved to the suburbs. “Well, times change” she says resignedly while rushing up the 15-minute walk from the bus station to the house where she works for the 92-yearold Charlotte.

A few years ago, after Charlotte’s stroke, her daughter Anne didn’t want her mother to live alone anymore. Charlotte finally agreed to move in with Anne, even though Anne works most of the time. As Anne is very concerned about her mother’s safety, she decided to install multiple monitoring systems to prevent her frail mother from getting hurt. Several fall detection systems surround the house, sending messages to emergency services and Anne if anything were to happen to her mother. Virtual assistants are available in every corner of the house. These assistants connect with assistive robots that prepare food, clean, and even help old Charlotte take a shower. However, even all this technology cannot prevent Charlotte from feeling lonely when her daughter is on one of her frequent business trips. That is why she hired Karin as a “granny-nanny” — to keep Charlotte in company and give her the chance to talk to someone other than a box of transistors. Karin enjoys spending time with Charlotte but working in their modern home also glaringly demonstrates to her the things she will never be able to afford. For speaking to her family, Karin uses simple calls interrupted by commercial ads in the free version, which she does not quite like. “I wish I could feel closer to them,” she languishes. In contrast, Charlotte’s daughter has set up a hologram communication system for her mother, and Karin often helps Charlotte find the right application and start the hologram. After her chat with Anne, Charlotte mentions once again what a shame it is that Karin still has to work at her age. Karin, unsure what to say, responds with a faint smile, pointing out that otherwise, they would not meet daily, and Charlotte would have to be alone with all that “frightening” technology.

After a long ride on two different autonomous buses, Karin finally arrives home. She climbs up the four floors to her small one-bedroom apartment without any detection systems or mobility aids. Slightly out of breath, Karin reaches her apartment door and asks herself how long she would be able to stay fit enough to go to work every day. “Not that I have much of a choice” she sighs. Her husband died relatively young, leaving Karin behind as the sole earner and with all their family’s financial responsibilities. However, after taking time off work to take care of their children, Karin had never really been able to re-establish her career, let alone save and financially plan for retirement. Now, without her side job, she couldn’t even afford her onebedroom apartment in the suburbs. Thinking back, she never expected her old age to be like this. When she was young, technology seemed promising for the aged. She thought she would retire and live comfortably with the aid of her digital servants. Interrupting her in her thoughts, ALI reminds Karin to go to sleep as her alarm will go off in less than 7 hours to start her daily routine all over again.

Signposts

■ Public pension systems are distressed. Governments increase retirement age, still a majority of the elderly population suffer from old-age poverty. ■ A low-interest-rate environment continues to prevail, causing the elderly to either endure lower dividends or make riskier investments on the capital market and incur losses due to insufficient financial literacy. ■ Automation exacerbates the income divide in the society as those with less specialized jobs are more likely to be replaced with machines. ■ Climate change becomes a focus for government spending leaving limited public funds to combat old-age poverty. ■ Financial hardship causes people to work past their retirement age. Often these jobs require some technical know-how, and this encourages technological literacy among the elderly. ■ An increasing influence of Asian suppliers triggers cheaper but unreliable tech options to flood the European markets. ■ Healthcare Robotics and AI-based medical procedures make significant advancements but are expensive and not covered by standard health insurance contracts. ■ The government introduces public digital training programs to bolster digital literacy. ■ Strong data privacy legislation is introduced, making the elderly less wary of technology. ■ Wearables are especially common among the elderly who can find cheaper variants and receive health insurance refunds for using them. On the other hand, health monitoring devices and smart home appliances are popular but not affordable for many among the elderly.