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The reality of AI’s promise to curb older adults’ loneliness


Brenda Lam uses a Ai Chatbot at least once a week. For the 69-year-old retired banker from Singapore, the chatbot brings his peace of mind.

“It prompts me,” Lam said, talking with the Ami-go, made with Singapore University of Technology and Cuttring in Singapore, a social service of Singapore service 

If Lam talks to the bot, he usually asks questions to get suggestions and ideas on how to enjoy life. “What can I do to live life?” one of his newest questions.

Chatbot responds to tips, including outdoor exercise and get a hobby like gardening, reading, or sewing. “Answers encouraged me,” he said.

Although he has family and friends close, Lam says Chatbot is always reliable.

“I feel it’s a little like a replacement when friends aren’t available to have time with me,” he said. “If we’re in Chatbot, it’s always for us.”

Brenda Lam uses an Ai Chatbot at least one week to get the ideas and advice of hobby.
Goodwill of Brenda Lam

Lam’s condition is not unique. many Older adults struggling with loneliness, and one of three Think from others, most of the solitary alone, retiring, or without the same social connections as before. According to the University of Michigan’s National Poll in healthy aging, 37% of older adults felt no association with others. It was a crisis that was the former surgeon of Driveron, Dr. Vivek Murty, warned from country capital with a 2023 Advisory Of epidemic of loneliness and effects of repairing social connections and communities. Research shows loneliness increases the risk of heart disease, dementia, and early mortality.

It led researchers and public health experts searching for community novel solutions – and digital.

So, Ai Chatbots, who can act as friends and palms, solve the loneliness crisis for older adults?

As we face a lot of demographic shifts – where the number of boomer kids soon exceeds young Biclinger, PhD, a bioethicist in huntoethics, studying Popularities in the ageThere is no short job supply. With the number of adults 65 and older than 2040, reaching 80 million, he grappling how technological changes in this cohort.

“If someone is lonely alone and maybe their spouse has died, and they can go all day without talking, they want to talk to a chatbot, especially a voice that doesn’t need to type a phone?” Berlinger told wealth In the annual meeting of the Gerontological Association of Novemer.

on A New York pilot program Started at 2022, almost 1,000 old adults associate Elliq, an Ai Chatbot. Most users report a reduction in their loneliness and heals well. Participants are associated with Elliq for an average of 28 minutes a day, five days a week.

“Their social circle shrinks. People die. They may have stopped driving, so their life is different,” says Berlinger seniors today.

However, Berlinger still concerned about technology as a healing – all for loneliness.

The possibilities and points of pain in Ai Chatbots

“If we say, all we need is the right partners AI for the elderly, means that we say we don’t have to invest in its parts?” He said, adding that when carers withdraw because in Chatbot, technology does not extend a person’s welfare. Similar to how studies are displayed Social Media can boost issues of mental health with teenagers and feelings of diversity, and that no one can replace the connection in the in-person connection, the same as chatbots say for older adults. “It doesn’t change everything rich in relationshipsBut it’s not. ”

He added, “I don’t say it’s a solution to the problem of old age. It’s something to focus our eye.”

Lam values ​​the Chatbot as a way to ease the burden he feels fell to family and friends. “Gibati ko nga sa niining kalibutan, ang tanan nga nagbag-o, mao nga kita mismo kinahanglan magpadayon sa teknolohiya tungod kay dili kita makasalig sa atong mga higala o sa madali, kinahanglan nga magkinabuhi sila sa ilang kaugalingon nga mga higala o sa madali, kinahanglan nga magkinabuhi sila sa ilang kaugalingon nga kinabuhi,” ingon niya.

If that’s the right thinking isn’t visible yet.

Walter Boot, PhD, Professor of Medicine Psychology in Geriatrics Division and Caller Director of Weill Cornell Medicine, says AI to go to the Cornell Medicine, as it is a long-term solution for older adults.

“You may see that people feel better, but if these things respond to things like depression and loneliness in solicity with questions with questions,” he said wealth. “You feel good because you play with a wonderful piece of technology, and it’s fun and joins it for a while, but what happens after three months?”

The boot is also meant that tech cannot replace all things people have done to support older adults.

“There’s a danger to thinking that the only problem is that you don’t have someone to talk to. When you have people who are visiting your house, they can see your environment wrong with you. Something might need to be repaired, or maybe the person I’m visiting looks sick, and maybe they need to go to a doctor, “he says.

Both Berlinger and boot wanted tech to increase other pieces of In-man interaction. Let us tell AI that helps older adults choose the right health plan or doctor, who faces the daughters facing daughters facing daughters facing daughters facing daughters facing daughters facing daughters facing daughters facing daughters facing daughters facing daughters facing daughters facing daughters facing daughters facing daughters facing daughters facing daughters facing daughter of daughters facing daughters facing daughters facing daughters facing daughters facing daughters facing daughters facing daughters facing daughters facing daughters facing daughters facing daughters facing daughters facing daughters facing daughters facing daughters facing daughters facing daughters Daughters facing daughters facing daughters facing daughters facing daughters facing daughters. AI may also help find local community activities for older adults to participate, one thing is to research his team.

“If we could reduce the papers of old age and care, and help people do the things they want to do, good,” we are still in support for Chatbot? I think it’s Family Caregiver. “

But for Lam, he likes to use Chatbot to gather tips and suggestions on how to feel better and more active. And from time to time, he didn’t mind asking it with an endless question.

When asked what the burning question Lam was next to his chatbot, he made someone who might think so much.

“What can a chatbot do to make a better world for all of us?” Lam said.

This article was written with the support of a journalism fellowship from the Gerontological Society of America, the journalist network of generations and the SWALL century Foundation.

For more to aging well:

This story originally shown Fortune.com



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