Hi-tech plan to aid elderly living alone

Installing artificial intelligence in houses will be trialled by a Massey University academic to support older people living alone.

The trial comes after the lonely death of Wellington pensioner Michael Clarke shocked the nation.

Mr Clarke, 88, was found dead in his bedsit last month, having possibly died unnoticed 10 months before.

Professor Hans Guesgen is a senior researcher in a team from Massey that is looking at ways to install artificial intelligence in houses to read a household's daily routine.

In San Francisco, he was recently made a senior member of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence.

While it is too late for Mr Clarke, the obvious practical application of the Massey project would be assisting old people living alone, or who had dementia, Professor Guesgen said.

A trial of the technology is about to begin in Palmerston North.

The technology was not about temperature control or doors opening automatically.

"We are more interested in providing support for the inhabitants in the house.

"There are just not enough people to look after the older people in houses."

Professor Guesgen, who works in Massey's Engineering and Advanced Technology School, said physical impairments were already well catered for, with wheelchairs, crutches and artificial limbs, but cognitive difficulties were harder to assist.

But there was a danger that normal behavioural changes could cause alarm, such as a stove being on for longer.

That would be odd at 3am with no-one up and about, while it could be normal if somebody was around for dinner. So during the trial, these types of behaviours would be monitored, Professor Guesgen said.

If it went well, he hoped organisations such as St John – a partner in the research – would use it.

For example, if an older person were to fall in their house and could not reach their St John alarm, the artificially intelligent sensors might know something was up.

But Professor Guesgen stressed that was some way off and some fine tuning was needed.

"There's nothing worse than raising false alarms. People wouldn't react any more."

The work began when Professor Guesgen transferred to Massey, from Auckland University, four years ago. More long-term work he was involved in included trying to make computers react to human ways of giving information.

For example, when someone described a man as tall, an artificial being would know what was meant without figures having to be programmed.

This would be useful in the architectural field, where a family might want an "open living space".

If a computer program knew what that meant, it could then come up with design possibilities.

- Manawatu Standard