Silver Linings in the Demographic Revolution

Under the Cortex

While we are fussing about the artificial-intelligence revolution, a demographic revolution may have much more radical consequences: There are more older people than ever in the world. In her last presidential column for the APS Observer, APS President Alison Gopnik, who studies learning and development at the University of California, Berkeley, writes about how psychological science may help us to understand and deal with the challenges that come with this increased longevity. An underexplored approach, she says, involves appreciating our brilliant, fragile young human learners as well as our wise, vulnerable, old human teachers, and then finding creative ways to bring the two groups together.

She reads her column in this episode.