Dichotomy.ai, genesis
As populations age globally, a critical challenge emerges: how do we provide quality care for our elderly while maintaining their dignity and independence? This question becomes increasingly urgent as demographic trends reshape society.
The traditional model of senior care relies heavily on human caregivers and institutional settings, but this approach faces mounting pressures. Many families struggle with the emotional and financial burden of long-term care decisions, often forced to choose between inadequate options.
While we do not typically think about our parents getting older, this process is irreversible and inevitable.
This realization led me to approach aging care as I would any complex problem: by planning ahead, analyzing the scenarios, and identifying controllable elements that could be improved through technology and innovation.
This situation isn’t unique to any one family, but rather represents a megatrend affecting most developed regions worldwide. People are living longer, while economic factors influence family size and structure. The result is called the Demographic Inversion. According to the UN world population projections, by 2030, there will be more 70-year-olds than there are 20-year-olds. Fewer young people available to provide care will create disparate ratios of care-workers to those in need.
The challenge is to create a system which allows seniors to age comfortably and gracefully, through assistive technology, while not depending on substantial numbers of human care-workers. Such a system provides Dignity and Independence to seniors. Building it is both an urgent personal priority and a looming challenge for society at large.
To think about senior living, I chose to focus on Activities of Daily Living, or ADLs. This is defined as “The tasks of everyday life. Basic ADLs include eating, dressing, getting into or out of a bed or chair, taking a bath or shower, and using the toilet. Instrumental activities of daily living (IADL) are activities related to independent living and include preparing meals, managing money, shopping, doing housework, and using a telephone.”1 Today, ADLs are performed for seniors by nursing professionals, in both private institutions as well as one-off in-home visits. In the future, all of these activities can be completed by seniors themselves, through the assistance of AI and robotic systems.
“The national annual median cost of care now ranges from nearly $106,000 for a private room in a nursing home to $19,240 for adult day health care services (based on five days per week per year) according to the Cost of Care Survey 2020 by Genworth Financial. A semi-private room ran $7,756 a month, or $93,075 per year.”2 This is the price range to match or beat.
My mission with Dichotomy.ai is to create AI and robotic systems which can aid seniors to achieve dignity and independence through technology-assisted living solutions.
