IEEE unveiled “Generation AI 2019: Third Annual Study of Millennial Parents and Generation Alpha Kids.” The survey reveals the confidence Millennial parents in the US, UK, India, China and Brazil with Generation Alpha children (nine years-old or younger) may have in using artificial intelligence and emerging technologies for the health and wellness of their children.

Considered to be the most tech-infused demographic, born 2010-2025, Generation Alpha is growing up with artificial intelligence benefiting their health and wellness, and technology infiltrating nearly every aspect of their lives.

Millennial parents would allow a 3D printed heart to be implanted in their children

Human donor organ availability can mean the difference between life and death. But researchers are using 3D printing technologies to develop organs, including hearts that use human cells, collagen and biological molecules.

• Most parents (US: 52%; UK: 60%; Brazil: 75%; India: 92%; China: 94%) would be very comfortable allowing a properly tested/fully functional 3D printed heart to be implanted in their child if needed in the future.
• That said, some parents surveyed would be “extremely” comfortable allowing a 3D printed heart to be implanted in their child (India: 58%; China: 50%; Brazil: 42%) while others are not very comfortable (US: 48%; UK: 40%).

For aches and pains: goodbye medication, hello VR

Virtual reality-powered headsets can immerse people in 3D virtual environments and because of this distraction, VR is being used for pain management.

• A significant majority of Millennial parents surveyed globally would prefer their paediatrician to recommend VR pain therapy instead of medication to alleviate their child’s pain (China: 97%; India: 96%; Brazil: 90; UK: 82%; US: 79%).
• In addition, some parents “strongly” prefer their paediatrician to recommend VR pain therapy instead of pain medication, including those in India (75%), China (58%) and Brazil (45%), but only one-third of parents in both the US and UK.

Artificial intelligence-powered virtual nurse? Not when our kids are in the hospital: US and UK parents

Though telehealth, AI and remote monitoring tools are helping nursing expand care beyond in-person bedside monitoring creating a practically virtual nurse, a majority of Millennial parents in the US (67%) and UK (57%) would not be very comfortable leaving their child in the care of an AI-powered virtual nurse during a hospital stay. Conversely, a majority of Millennial parents in China (88%), India (83%) and Brazil (61%) would be very comfortable leaving their child at the hospital in the care of an AI-powered virtual nurse.

US millennial parents an exception to allowing robot surgery on children

Surgical robots powered by artificial intelligence are bringing new innovations and accuracy to the operating room.

• Millennial parents in Asia are significantly more likely to allow robots powered by AI to conduct surgery on their Generation Alpha child — even more so in 2019 as compared to 2018 (China: 94% in 2019 vs. 82% in 2018; India: 86% in 2019 vs. 78% in 2018), while in 2019, 51% in the UK (a six percent increase over 2018) and 46 percent of Millennial parents in the US (a 1% increase from 2018), say they would be very likely.
• In Brazil, 69% of Millennial parents in 2019 say they would be very likely to allow robots powered by AI conduct surgery as compared to 60% in 2018.
• What’s more, in 2019, 25 percent of Millennial parents in the US and 21 percent in the UK say they would be “not likely at all” to allow this surgery on their child.

Self-driving school buses: Stress relief for some parents, not others

Juggling work and transporting kids to school on time can be stressful for both parents and children. Autonomous technologies are being deployed in self-driving buses piloted around the world, but Millennial parents are divided on how likely they would be to allow their child to take such transportation to school to minimize their stress, even if tested as safe and staffed by a caretaker robot.

A majority of American Millennial parents (58%) and UK parents (51%) say they are not very likely to allow their child to take a self-driving bus to school while a clear majority of parents in China (91%), India (87%) and Brazil (67%) say they are very likely to allow their child to take such a self-driving bus to school to minimize their stress.

Rare Genetic Diseases in a Snapshot: Machine learning is helping clinicians diagnose rare diseases by analysing patient photos and correlating detected irregularities with rare genetic diseases. Millennial parents concerned about their child are universally comfortable using this technology to seek answers, though those in Asia are the most comfortable.

• Millennial parents from Asia (India: 90%; China: 89%) say they would be very comfortable using this technology for diagnosing their child.
• More than three-quarters of Brazilian Millennial parents (78%) say they would be very comfortable using this technology to diagnose their child, while 57% of Millennial parents in the US, as well as the UK, say the same.

Favourite recliner chairs could have health smarts too

AI and sensor technologies are powering a growing number of “smart” devices, from voice-enabled speakers to refrigerators with interior cameras that can monitor if milk is running low. In the future, smart furniture may be embedded with sensors that measure biometrics such as weight, blood pressure and heart rate. Universally, Millennial parents would be very interested (US: 63%; UK: 66%; Brazil: 86%; China: 92%; India: 94%) in having a smart chair in their home that could automatically conduct health tests.

Artificial intelligence accelerating as care preference during golden years (instead of relying on kids)

Overwhelmingly around the globe, Millennial parents’ preference is strong for using AI to live independently during their golden years rather than relying on their Generation Alpha children and has increased significantly over the past year across most regions.

• The most dramatic growth in preference for AI to live independently in their golden years is among Brazilian parents, which leapt to 82% in 2019, from 61% in 2018. A similar trend is seen in India, where 90% of Millennial parents in 2019 prefer to rely on AI as compared to 79% in 2018. China’s Millennial parents continue to have the highest preference for AI support as they age — 93% in 2019 vs. 94% in 2018.
• In the UK, 74% of Millennial parents in 2019 prefer to rely on AI for care, a 13 percent increase from 2018 when 61% of parents cited a preference for relying on AI.
• A clear majority of American Millennial parents in 2019 prefer to rely on AI (61%), a five percent increase from 2018 when 56% of US parents cited a preference for relying on AI. As such, preference for relying on their children for care in their golden years decreased in 2019 to 39% vs. 44% in 2018.

Doctors using artificial intelligence for kids’ cancer diagnoses sought

Artificial Intelligence technologies are being used to improve diagnoses for certain types and grades of cancer. A majority of Millennial parents worldwide say they would be very likely to seek out a doctor using AI for cancer diagnoses should their child or a family member need such an evaluation.

A majority of Millennial parents in China (94%), India (88%) and Brazil (78%) would be very likely to seek out a doctor using AI for cancer diagnoses for their child or a family member, while 59% of UK parents and 53% of US parents are very likely to do so.

Rise in parents likely to use chatbot paediatrician diagnoses

People are conversing with AI chatbots that compare symptoms against a database of diseases, patient history and circumstances, then recommend a course of action. For the second year in a row, IEEE asked Millennial parents across the globe how likely they would be to use an AI and speech recognition-powered chatbot to diagnose their sick Generation Alpha child.

• More than nine out of 10 parents in China (95%) say they are likely to use an AI chatbot to diagnose their sick child in the future, up from 85% in 2018, including more than half (53%) “extremely” likely. Likewise, in India, 87% of parents are likely to use an AI chatbot for their child’s diagnosis in 2019 with 60% saying they are extremely likely, up significantly from 2018 (38%).

UK parents are more likely in 2019 (53%) than in 2018 (50%) to use this technology to diagnose their child, while US parents continue to not be very likely (2019: 51 % vs. 2018: 52%) to use this technology to diagnose their child.

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At the core of any DevOps initiative is the judicious employment of containers and microservices, which dramatically speed up and simplifying the jobs of developers and operations teams alike. While many of the tried-and-true rules of IT management apply, containers and microservices also add new considerations, and new ways of doing things.

To explore many of the IT management concerns that accompany successful container and microservice deployments, we turn to the observations of two seasoned experts in the field, Ashesh Badani, VP and general manager of OpenShift for Red Hat and Marc Wilczek, a highly regarded industry thought leader.

Badani, writing at The Enterprisers Project, observes that the ultimate goal of containers and microservices — and the DevOps they enable — is agility. “Containers corral applications in a neat package, isolated from the host system on which they run. Developers can easily move them around during experimentation, which is a fundamental part of DevOps. Containers also prove helpful as you move quickly from development to production environments.”

Developers are especially enthusiastic about microservices enabled by containers for a couple of reasons, Wilczek explains in a recent post in CIO. “They enable developers to isolate functions eas­ily, which saves time and effort, and increases overall productivity. Unlike monoliths, where even the tiniest change involves building and deploying the whole application, each microservice deals with just one concern.”

As with any promising new technology or methodology, there are barriers to overcome, both organizational and technological. Badini and Wilczek offer sage advice on overcoming the major speed bumps that may flummox the move to a microservices and containerized architecture:

Organizational skills and readiness: Before any container of microservices effort can get underway, people across the enterprise need to be on board with it, and ready to adapt their own mindsets. “IT leaders driving cultural change need support from both the C-suite and evangelists in the smaller teams,” says Badini, warning that all too often, “the easiest thing to do is just do nothing.” But today’s hyper-competitive and hyper-fast economic environment demands the speed and agility containers and microservices make possible. The good news, Badani adds, is “you don’t need all the resources or skills of Facebook in order to make significant business change. Start experiments with smaller groups. As you succeed and become more comfortable, expand out in terms of technology and talent. Encourage people on your team to engage with their peers outside the company, to talk about technology and culture challenges.”

Platform. Choice of platform is key to a container and microservices efforts. “A platform addresses management, governance, and security concerns,” says Badani. “While there are plenty of open source container tools to experiment with, an enterprise-grade container platform typically comprises dozens of open source projects, including Kubernetes orchestration, security, networking, management, build automation and continuous integration and deployment capabilities out of the box.”

Capacity and lifecycle management: “Both containers and microservices can easily be replaced and therefore tend to have a relatively short lifespan” — often measured in days, says Wilczek. “The short lifespan combined with the enormous density lead to an unprecedented number of items that require monitoring.” In addition, containers need a lot of memory space. The challenge is that “with their own operating environment attached, images can easily reach a couple of hundred megabytes in size,” Wilczek says. He recommends ongoing lifecycle management practices — “especially retiring old images to free up shared resources and avoid capacity constraints.” An ability to quickly retire containers to free up memory space requires a comprehensive lifecycle management effort.

Network layer: Wilczek cautions that networks — or even virtualized network layers — may prove to be bottlenecks in the performance of microservices and containerized architectures, and thus require “close monitoring in terms of performance, load balancing, and seamless interaction.”

Balancing legacy and cloud-native apps: Trade-offs between existing infrastructure and new, cloud-borne applications may be a sticking point, but is normal, Badani explains. “Some CIOs still have COBOL apps to support. Grappling with both old and new technologies, and making tradeoffs, is normal. Some companies seek containers mostly to house cloud-native apps being created by application development teams, including new work and revamps of existing apps. These apps are often microservices-based. The goal is to break up an app into its underlying services, so teams can update the apps independently.”

Monitoring: “Many traditional IT monitoring tools don’t provide visibility into the containers that make up those microservices, leading to a gap somewhere between hosts and applications that is ultimately off the radar,” Wilczek warns. “Organizations need to put one common monitoring in place comprising both worlds and covering the entire IT stack – from the bottom to the top.”

Manageability. Organizations need to ensure that there are enough staff resources dedicated to container and microservice deployment and management. “All too often, developers are tempted to add new functionality by creating yet another microservice,” Wilczek says. “In no time, organizations find themselves attempting to manage an army of containers and countless microservices competing for the same IT infrastructure underneath.” He recommends employing “analytics tools that discover duplicative services, and detect patterns in container be­havior and consumption to prioritize access to systems resources.”

Security. “Because containers contain system specific libraries and dependencies, they’re more prone to be affected by newly discovered security vulnerabilities,” Badani says, who recommends the use of “trusted registries, image scanning, and management tools” that can help automatically identify and patch container images.

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