Chatty robot helps seniors fight loneliness through AI companionship

CORAL SPRINGS, Fla. — Joyce Loaiza lives alone, but when she returns to her apartment at a Florida senior community, the retired office worker often has a chat with a friendly female voice that asks about her day. The replacement, though, understood his grandfather’s love of classical music and his “quirky sense of humor.” Skuler realized a robot could fill that companionship gap by adapting to each senior’s personality and interests. Like hunger makes people seek food and thirst makes them seek water, she said “that unpleasant feeling of loneliness should motivate us to reconnect socially.” Satiating that with AI “makes you feel like you’ve fulfilled it, but in reality you haven’t,” Holt-Lunstad said. “I wish I could just snap my fingers to make a person show up at the home of one of the many, many older adults that don’t have any family or friends, but it’s a little bit more complicated,” said Greg Olsen, director of the New York State Office for the Aging. People generally like her and she makes them smile and brings joy.” Skuler said ElliQ was purposely designed without eyes and a mouth so it wouldn’t fully imitate humans.