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.
Sebastian Thrun predicts that within 10 years – the time it will likely take for Canadian seniors to outnumber children – there will be cars that can motor down the highway and change lanes; the human at the wheel theoretically could take a nap.
Researchers around the world are fine-tuning a virtual ecosystem of robots, which may or may not look like science-fiction fantasies – computers watching us through cameras, intelligent wheelchairs, machines with perky grins and cone-shaped bodies – but can remember prescriptions, give directions, order takeout or just have a chat.
“Baby boomers don't want to retire like their grandparents,” says Dan Kara, president of Robotic Trends, an industry consulting company. “They have the money. They have the need. The technology is there. It's the perfect storm.”
And the winds are picking up: The two million personal robots in use as of 2005 – mostly toys and a few flying-saucer-shaped robots that vacuum carpets or mow lawns – make up a tiny portion of the robot industry, which largely serves companies that want cheap, precise factory workers. But by next year, the International Federation of Robotics predicts 5.6 million more personal robots will be sold.
A new Japanese cone-shaped robot on wheels called RI-MAN can see, hear and smell (by chemical detection), and the company website shows it effortlessly lifting a young woman. Some day soon, its creator has boasted, RI-MAN will be able to tell if a human is sick by smelling his or her breath.
Last week, in Nagoya, Japan, a temp agency (ironically named People Staff) announced that local businesses can now hire Wakamuru, a three-foot-tall, rolling yellow robot that recognizes faces, gives visitors friendly directions to destinations – and works for human wages, roughly $25,000 (all figures U.S.) a year.
