Four For Friday | Jan 19, 2024
Four For Friday | Jan 19, 2024
LF103 | Linkage Launch, Deloitte's new generative report, McKinsey on women's health & dementia robots
Welcome to a Looking Forward’s Four For Friday. Four things that have piqued my interest this week. Enjoy!
New longevity venture builder in the house: Linkage Launch
Linkage Launch is a new venture builder from Linkage that has come out of the gates with two startups in formation: Healthonomy, an AI tool for delivering efficiencies in senior care and Assurance Health, a new type of health insurance designed to reduce caregiver churn.
Deloitte’s new Generative AI Report
A remarkable 48% of businesses surveyed say generatuve ai is going to have a transformative impact on their business in the next two years
Thr $1 trillion opportunity in improving women’s health
A new McKinsey report showing that women are on average sicker and frailer for longer than men, resulting in a $1 trillion economic boost if we can close the gap.
Welcoming our new dementia robot overlords
A fairly upbeat take on some of the emerging research and new robot products to help care for those with dementia. It seems their physicality conveys emotion and presence more effectively than an app on a screen could do:
…'‘the defunct and sleeping robots give the room a weird energy, as if it were full of ghosts. This, I learn, is the superpower of social robots: not strength, not speed or precision, but vibes. They grab hold of our psyche. They get under our skin. Even though we know better, we respond to them as if they were alive. The tech critic and author Sherry Turkle calls it pushing people’s “Darwinian buttons.” Unlike most other gadgets, robots get our social instincts tingling. Of course, explains Šabanović, “what distinguishes robots is that they have a body.” She adds, “They can move, show they’re paying attention, trigger us.” Children learn more from a robot than a screen. Adults trust robots more readily than computers. Dogs obey their commands.
That’s all for this week. As always, feedback welcome. Feel free to share insights or links of interest.
- Stephen