We need to help older adults live better at home. We are currently designing the core features of our AI platform MVP. Not in our ivory tower (we don't have any...). By talking directly to people in the field. Local social services, caregivers, aging experts, our relatives, ... We'll come back to this later in another article. Before talking about features, we want to talk about values.
We will help older adults live better at home. But not at any cost. With ethics as guardrails. To achieve our mission, we have a few clear mandatory guidelines in mind before even thinking about the first usages.
Dignity
Dignity. Let's go right into it. THE big topic. Tricky. When we speak about dependent older adults, dignity comes with it. What makes it tricky? Disclaimer, we're not going to talk about technology here, we're more going to touch philosophical concepts. Philosophical concepts that technology must support or comply with, that is how we see the role of technology at Agely.
As human beings, we want to be and stay in control of our lives. Decide what matters to us (which can massively differ from one to the other by the way). When we begin to depend on others, our ability to make decisions about everything can be put into question. At a certain point it should be put into question. And ultimately it MUST be put into question. It is not about technology, it is about how technology must adjust to the best possible set up for each older adult. As long as they can make decisions on their own, Agely must support and serve them. As soon as they need assistance from someone else on some specific topics, Agely must adjust. And here is the complexity: nobody is the same, each context is different and change of state doesn't happen overnight, it is usually a long subterranean and subtle process.
Mr Lefebvre, aged 82, is in charge of everything except he needs someone to drive him to any distant locations. Whenever discussions with Agely refer to going somewhere, Agely must mobilize a third party actor. Ms Blanchard, aged 79, is quite autonomous except she shows some early signs of memory losses. Agely must remind her with medication and other health related topics while keeping her caregiver and nurse updated if any concern.
Agely can be configured to properly handle any context but moreover, Agely detects when it might be the right time to loop someone else into the decision. Agely ensures at the same time that the older adult remains in charge as long as he can and that he safely and smoothly hands over some responsibilities to other stakeholders when required.
It was once feared that technology and AI could be less empathetic than humans. Experience showed that, in many cases, the opposite can be true. Technology can ensure a consistent, fair and considerate management of any older adult in need of assistance.
Security & Privacy
Security & Privacy: So obvious but not needless to say. Agely will deal with highly sensitive information. Personal information including health records. Everyone wants their personal data to be safe. We are used to it, we come from the Insurance industry, where data security is alpha and omega. State-of-the-art certifications (ISO27001, ISO42001, Health Data Hosting, ...) are a must to be able to operate and deliver value. Trust is not something that you claim, it is something that you earn.
But, here, we will have to manage another level of complexity: sharing personal information across various stakeholders with various responsibilities, various authorizations and above all various appetites from the older adult to share depending on the stakeholder. Older adults may want to share some information with some neighbours but not with their relatives. They may even want to share with Agely and nobody else at some point. We have to deal with this. Again, this may change over time, we can't take a context for granted forever, it might also vary based on the topic or the level of emergency.
Agely platform will be state-of-the-art in terms of data privacy and will provide a robust and powerful system to manage information sharing along with audit trail for traceability.
Our North Stars
Dignity, Security and Privacy are our North Stars, top of our mind. Nothing else matters more. They are the standards against which every use case, every data flow, and every interaction within Agely will be evaluated. These values ensure that technology remains a tool in the service of older adults, never the opposite.