Whitney Espich: Hi, I'm Whitney Espich, the CEO of the MIT Alumni Association
and I hope you enjoy this digital production created
for alumni and friends like you.
[APPLAUSE]
Just so you know, this is MIT still.
Class participation is going to be 10% of your grade.
My name is Joe Coughlin.
I lead the MIT AgeLab.
This morning you heard about your health
and what we're going to be doing to get you to live longer.
You heard from Jim.
God you're an economist.
I'm not sure whether I'm happy or depressed--
but how are you going to spend your money.
But I want to talk to you about the research
we're doing in terms of what are you going to do with that time.
Think about it.
You're living longer.
Our challenge now is, how do we get you
to live longer and live better?
How do you cash in that longevity dividend?
I want you to look at these kids.
Aren't they cute?
You're allowed to say yes.
You know why they're cute?
They're not teenagers yet.
That's why they're cute.
[LAUGHTER]
The fact of the matter is, half of the children
in the so-called industrialized world
are likely to live to age 100, only half.
As Jim pointed out, not equity.
This longevity dividend is not equitably distributed--
but half of them.
But start thinking about a 100-year life.
What does that mean?
How many, not jobs will you have-- how many careers will
you have?
The people marching in the procession outside this room,
how many careers will they have?
Think of the technologies that have changed.
When did a social media analyst become a thing?
But it is now.
How many times will my wife want to hear the same jokes
after 35-plus years of marriage?
[LAUGHS]
How many places will you be living and doing and the like?
You see, unlike economics, which is one part math,
two parts hope, unlike engineering
that's really one part math and two parts technology--
demography is destiny.
And I want you to start thinking now about a world that
is headed towards 100 years.
You heard earlier about the fact that we're not just aging
but, frankly, we stopped having kids.
By 2047, the entire world will have more people
on the planet over 60 than so-called children
under the age of 18.
But at the AgeLab, and this is [? Lou ?] [? Aaron-- ?]
unfortunately he's gone now, but he was class of '40, physics.
He participated in our 85-plus lifestyle leaders.
So if you're 85 and older, contact us.
We love to talk to people that are those lifestyle
leaders that actually give our students and researchers
insight into the new technologies,
way of life and the like.
The AgeLab brings in design, technology, and human behavior.
Aging is a multidisciplinary sport.
It is foolhardy to believe that only one discipline is
going to invent life tomorrow.
And by the way, if you like what I have to say,
it's to their credit.
This is my team of social scientists, engineers,
and a variety of other things out there.
If you don't like what I have to say, blame me.
We talk about the environment.
We talk about transportation.
The future of the home and the like,
and I'll touch on a few of those things
today to show you some insights as to what
MIT is doing to think about the future of life tomorrow.
But I want to ask you, what is the most powerful technology
in the world?
We're sitting here at Tech Reunion.
Shout it out, class participation--
what is the most powerful technology in the world?
Information [INAUDIBLE]
Information-- I heard genes over here.
I'm going to challenge all of you
because I learned this as a student here many years ago,
when I actually I had hair, that the oldest
technology in the world, the most
powerful technology in the world is not
all the stuff we think about.
Believe it or not, it's the oldest technology.
It is the story.
Think about what the story does.
It explains why we do certain things, why we don't do others.
It talks about the realm of possibilities
and what's impossible in between.
Think about, those of you that are investment,
you use the phrase "my investment thesis."
Don't say a thesis.
It's your story.
Well, here's a story for you.
Old age is made up.
[LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE]
It is.
I have to tell you the truth.
It's all made up.
Do you know that British medical science, in the 1800s--
and it came across the entire country, North America,
around the world.
British medical science came up with this notion
of "vital force."
You see, you were born, they said,
with a certain amount of vital energy.
You were imbued with this energy.
And by the way, if you used it badly,
which, for those of you in the cheap seats,
meant anything fun, you drained down this energy.
You were no longer a glass full, you were a glass half empty.
Now the thing about stories is they don't just explain things,
they create language.
And if you were so tired and you could not work, what would you
have to do?
You would have to "re-tire."
And by the way, in the 1800s or early 1900s,
there was no social safety net.
So if you could not work, you went to another institution.
You went to the alms homes, which
over time, because if you didn't have family to support you,
became senior homes.
And don't you love the linear lines of stories?
We go from retirement to poor home
to senior home to funeral home.
And by the way, only economists and doctors and policymakers
could make the greatest success of humankind, longer life,
into a problem to be solved rather than an achievement
to be celebrated.
So rather than thinking about global aging as an opportunity,
we now have to really start rethinking about what
do we do with all that time.
The trouble is, stories have real implications.
Heinz Senior Foods, smart company, they said, well gee,
old people, let's see, they don't have teeth.
They don't have taste.
I know, we'll make baby food.
That crashed and burned.
Then there's this other guy.
Many of you probably know them.
A contractor in California said, OK, older people, let's see,
after World War Two, they have a lot of time.
They've got pensions.
What do we do with them?
What do we do?
I know, they can play.
You see, we've been making up stories
of what to do with this time-- not incorrect, but woefully
incomplete.
How about this system?
The "help, I've fallen, and I can't get up--"
profoundly rational.
But think about the following-- only 35% of people over 75
believe that they are old.
But 100% of people with something
that says, "hi, I'm about to fall down,"
know that they're old.
Senior housing, long before COVID,
was not something people were saying, I want that.
It's in trouble because we have new expectations.
And by the way, even my students I have to gently push.
Somehow we believe that after a certain age, the only thing
you're going to be interested in is your blood pressure
and taking your medications.
I hope there's something else.
And by the way, is this a remote control
or a self-defense device?
We're not sure.
The fact is, design and technology needs
to come together.
This is lazy engineering and terrible design.
What color is this?
And by the way, the men don't answer.
20% of you are color blind anyway.
It's kind of like hospital gray.
Do you want this on your coffee table, even your nightstand.
I said this to one company, and they said, don't.
You don't criticize our design.
We use this color.
This looks like MGH clinical blue to me.
I don't want this in my house either.
The fact of the matter is old age has got a new face.
It is not equitably distributed.
These are outliers, like all of you.
But from Argentina to Chile to UK to US,
these are people who define themselves or identify
themselves as over 75.
The fact of the matter is, we don't
look like the previous generations of old.
We are more educated than any time in history.
By the way, just between us-- don't tell anyone--
that doesn't make us smart, but it
does give us chronic attitude.
The Facebook, for instance, is now
referred to as the social media nursing home.
No one wants to post what they did Friday night
to have their mother and grandmother see it
the next morning.
Wii has now a new medical condition
called Wii wrist, Wii elbow because older adults are
the second largest group playing it, blowing out
ligaments and hurting muscles.
But the fact of the matter is, as I
write in my book, The Longevity Economy,
it is also the third-largest economy in the world.
In the United States, the 50-plus make up nearly 70%
of the discretionary spend.
Sadly, we only get about 2% of advertising dollars.
So let's talk for a moment, as I make a transition here,
about coffee.
I saw many of you having it.
And I'm looking at the age distribution,
so I think we can all appreciate this.
We know a cup of coffee.
Remember our parents trying to tell us this was coffee?
We know this is decaffeinated swill.
It is not coffee.
We have all grown up at a time where
we know that this and many other things can be coffee.
Why is that relevant?
The new generation gap is not about age.
It is not about money and education.
It is about expectations.
We believe there's a pill, a product,
or a policy that is going to enable
us to live longer and better.
And I don't care what you may think, none of us in this room
are nearly as patient nor as polite as our parents.
We're going to demand it.
So in the words of the great philosopher, Jimmy Buffett,
"we are the people your parents warned you about."
This is a market force, a political force.
It is certainly a force for good as well.
So I want to ask you to think about five questions
to consider in retirement, and weave in the research
that we're doing, hopefully to kind of get
at them a little bit.
First one is, what are you going to do in retirement?
Now, I know many of you think you've got a lot of answers,
but let me do some very quick math.
I'm not a very good--
I teach in urban planning, so math is a little-- you know,
I need it, but I'm not good at it.
Think about the following, from birth to 21 years old--
and if it's better for you back there, drinking age--
is about 8,000 days.
Be generous with the numbers.
From 21 to midlife crisis, 46, 47 years old,
is about 8,000 days.
Now I bet a bunch of you now are starting to get the algorithm.
And from midlife crisis to 65, that Newtonian law of physics,
of retirement, is 8,000 days.
Jim showed you some really cool numbers, especially
for this group.
From 65 to 85 and change is another 8,000 days.
So I've got two daughters.
I can assure you, from 0 to 21 there's
no return on investment.
It's all cost.
We'll just call that childhood.
You're no longer looking at retirement
as a short period of golf, Disney, grandchildren,
and some other things we don't want to talk about.
It is now one-third of adulthood.
Think about that.
The brochures that your financial advisors and the like
give you do not reflect that this is a life stage.
It is not a short vacation.
And by the way, I play golf--
God, I hope not.
Work in retirement-- more people are
starting to work, especially after COVID.
Heck, I can work from home.
I can do a little bit of part time, a variety of things.
Many of us are going back to school,
not just to take that class at your parents wouldn't pay for.
But this gentleman went back to school
to start an entirely new business at age 78--
so enrichment, entrepreneurship.
By the way, for the women in the room,
the second-largest group of people starting new businesses
are not some kid wearing a hoodie and sneakers writing
code.
No, actually it's a woman over age 50.
Indeed, the new women's movement is entrepreneurship.
Let me introduce you to this dog,
or it would look like this dog.
I was doing focus groups on the future of retirement
in that retirement nirvana known as Florida.
And the guy who picks me up-- and I use Uber,
just regular Uber--
he picks me up in a Mercedes.
So I'm thinking, I got pay dirt.
But on his lap is this crazy dog.
And he's got a Red Sox add on in Jacksonville.
And so I kind of look in the mirror, and I figure,
OK, I'll start talking to him.
And I said, hey, are you from Boston?
He says, yeah, I just retired down here with the wife.
Sold a real estate company, and live right over there.
And he was pointing to very high-end condominiums
on the beach.
And I'm looking at the dog, who's
growling because it knows I'm getting nosy all of a sudden.
And so I pause for a little bit, and I look at him
in the mirror, and I say, so, why are you driving for Uber?
He says, do you know what Sam and I-- the dog's name is Sam--
Sam and I and the wife do every morning?
I said, no sir.
We walk up the beach, and we wave to all the nice people,
two miles.
I'm imagining the dog with the short legs
going over the sand dunes.
Do you know what we do after that?
[COUGHS] Excuse me.
I say, no sir.
We turn around and we wave to the same damn people
all over again.
He's driving for Uber because that's
a lot of time to cash in, a lot of things to do.
Second thing is, who are going to have lunch with?
No one wants to see you in the morning, and dinner you've
probably got covered.
But lunch-- and what's the name of the--
I'm looking at Joe from the Alumni Association.
What's the name of the art school up the river?
Oh, yeah, that's it--
Harvard.
[LAUGHTER]
In fairness, my daughter graduates the design school
there tomorrow.
But a great book written by Bob Putnam years ago,
a sociologist at Harvard, said, you know, we like to bowl,
but we don't join bowling leagues.
We dropped out of Rotary.
We don't join a PTA.
We don't do all these things.
As we age, we start to become more isolated.
We become more lonely.
And we know that, from meta analysis
out there, that being lonely out there
is the physical health impact of smoking
11 to 15 cigarettes per day.
One of my students and team actually
developed a company called Rendever that
actually uses virtual reality.
Look, I want to get you out there in the real world.
But in lieu of that, in assisted living,
this company goes and takes groups of people
into virtual reality.
And you lead the tour of where you want to go.
Interestingly enough, the most common place people want to go
is the street that they grew up on.
How about this.
Where do you want to retire?
Have you thought about that?
Do you know, most of us, by the time we're in our 50s,
our marriage, our mortgage, and our memories are in the home
we're in.
We want to stay there.
Sadly, half of us don't believe we can.
So the lab is doing a lot of research
on how do we make age-ready communities, places that
have the intensity and density and excitingness
to be able to have you stay there and live there well.
Years ago, we had the Massachusetts Avenue Living
Laboratory.
We had cameras on Central Square,
looking at how people interact with trucks and cars
and stores and the like.
By the way, just for a sidenote, every bad master's
and urban planning thesis at Harvard and MIT
has been implemented in Central Square.
[LAUGHTER]
Most important question to me in terms of quality of life
is the following, when you talk about retirement.
Yes, retirement's about money and retirement planning.
But this one is important.
How are you going to get an ice cream cone?
Why is it important?
Well, for me ice cream is important.
But do you know the little things that make you smile,
the little rituals that you like that maybe even your spouse
of many decades does not know?
Do you have access to that thing?
Well, most of us, 70% of us over age 50,
live in some suburbs or rural areas,
where walking is not an option.
Transit does not exist.
So the lab started around the idea of transportation.
How can we actually think about new technology going
into the car, eventually the autonomous vehicle,
to make it possible to make that glue happen.
Transportation is the very glue that
makes everything else happen.
And by the way, if you're walking around campus
and you see any of my vehicles, run to a high floor.
Many of them are autonomous, and many are driven by my students.
We have AGNES-- this is the Age Gain Now Empathy System.
It is an old suit that gives you the joys of two
or three chronic conditions, if you will,
to enjoy how to shop in stores, navigate your home,
or in this case, using the T-- the Tube in London
and the like.
And then finally, how will you provide care, not just
for yourself, but for others?
Caregiving-- we talk about all this new technology
that's in hospitals.
Healthcare begins in the home.
We have a program called CareHive,
where it's the largest panel of family
caregivers around the world, trying
to understand those micro moments of what you do
and how you do it.
And that's largely around technology.
How many of you remember March of 2020?
You know what you were doing.
You were out there buying pallet loads of toilet paper.
Profoundly rational, by the way.
But the other thing that we found you buying--
technology.
We believe that technology moves seven to eight years faster
into people's homes than it would
have been by natural causes.
So what we're looking at is new technology and the gig economy.
Remember, the young people, the millennials,
the ones who didn't want to make the-- drive their own car,
make their own food, or clean their own house?
Suddenly we found that all those things, by app,
made a virtual assisted living.
So we're starting to try to understand and design home
as a service, not simply as a place--
technologies that will monitor everything
in the home, what you're doing, did you eat,
are you OK, but ambient, not on you.
We believe that the future of the home is going to be from
the house that many of us grew up in-- that if you plug
in, you pray it works--
all the way to a home that's going
to change everything inside--
color, light, smell-- technology sensitivity
based upon your mood, your connectivity,
and your social well-being.
And, yes, the robots are among us.
They're already out there.
By the way, one of these robots is
on the market that insults you at least once or twice a day
or tells a joke.
As I said, I have two kids.
I get insulted for free.
I don't have to worry about it.
And then lastly, my favorite example,
whether it's Toto, Kohler, Panasonic, whatever, they are
now developing smart toilets.
Now, I know I'm the guy standing between you and lunch,
so I'll keep it clean.
I want you to imagine a toilet that-- what's
the best way I can put this-- downloads from the user body
weight, blood pressure, body thing, and then uploads
that to a nutritionist, whatever it might be,
to monitor, manage, and motivate your health.
On that note, let me end with an icon of MIT history,
Vannevar Bush, science advisor to FDR and Dean of Engineering
here at the Institute.
He said science was the "Endless Frontier."
Ladies and gentlemen, we are part of a community, I believe,
that has done many things to enable
us to live that 100 years.
It is now our challenge to make 100 years 100 good years.
Thanks for having me.
[APPLAUSE]
Whitney Espich: Thanks for joining us
and for more information on how to connect
with the MIT Alumni Association please visit our website.