Of the three technologies--nanotechnology, biotechnology and robotics--that will make a difference to how we age, robotics is the easiest to talk about. You can see a robot, at least.
Domestic robots are all the rage in Asia. In South Korea, the government wants every home to have one in 10 years. They can be used for monitoring (most come with webcams), child-minding (I wonder if future psychologists will be talking patients through bonding issues with their robots), but also with domestic tasks. The implications for assisted living are obvious, and we'll talk about them more later.
But the other big point about robotics is that the technology used to make robots more useful can actually be used to make us more capable.
I want one of those just for my household chores. The exciting thing is that this technology will get pushed forward because the various Departments of Defense see the advantages of giving soldiers a bit more oomph (See Starship Troopers, by Robert Heinlein, for more detail). The last time the DoD put big money into research, it turned into the Internet.
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