Can robots help care for us as we age?

Professor Tony Prescott explains why technology will be critical to us all as we age. My interest in this is both as an ageing UK citizen and as a technologist. I have spent much of the last 25 years trying to solve problems in artificial intelligence and robotics. In 2011, I was invited to lead a European working group on the potential societal impacts of robotics. We quickly decided to focus on the possible use of robots to address the Europe-wide demographic shift.