IEEE has shared the results of its third annual Generation AI study, which examines the evolving attitudes of Millennial parents with regards to technology and its influence on their Generation Alpha children. The study defines Generation Alpha as the cohort born between 2010 and 2015.
The study was set up to determine how willing parents would be to let various AI technologies play a role in their children’s healthcare and wellness routines. The global survey polled 400 Millennial parents (aged 23-38) in each of five different countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom, India, China, and Brazil.
Generally speaking, parents in India and China were far more trusting of AI healthcare technology than their American and British counterparts, with Brazil falling in between the two extremes. For instance, most American and British parents were unwilling to leave their children in the care of a virtual nurse, while the opposite was true for those in China and India. The trend was similar for surgical robots and self-driving school buses.
IEEE did find global support for certain innovations. Most parents in all five countries would prefer a doctor who treats pain with VR instead of medication. They are also willing to embrace chatbots, AI, and smart monitoring devices in the diagnostic process, and would consider the use of 3D-printed organs (assuming those organs have been properly tested).
However, there were notable differences in the relative levels of enthusiasm. In India and China, the support for such technologies is nearly universal (over 85 percent), though it is often only a slight majority (between 50-60 percent) in the US and the UK.
Parents around the world said that they hope to rely on AI (rather than their children) for their own care once they reach their later years.
The growing support for AI healthcare innovations lends credence to a recent Technavio report that predicted that such technologies would play an increasingly vital role in the healthcare ecosystem. IEEE has already spent the past few years working to improve the interoperability of e-health technologies, while companies like Nuance have developed AI-powered virtual assistants to improve clinical documentation and diagnostic outcomes.
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