The state’s Office for the Aging released a report this week, stating that its year-old pilot program giving 800 New Yorkers who are 65 or older an “empathetic AI companion” had reduced loneliness by 95 percent.

The artificial intelligence device, named ElliQ, sits on a tabletop from where it starts conversations; tells jokes; tracks health data; provides information like weather and news; and plays workout videos, games, and music.

The office announced it would continue its program in partnership with Intuition Robotics, a startup company based in Israel that says it “is on a mission to empower older adults to live happier, healthier, and more independent lives at home.”

“After years of research and user studies combining psychology, behavioral sciences, and advanced cognitive AI capabilities, we built the first-ever empathetic digital companion — one that delivers our needs while projecting empathy and gently encouraging engagement, trust, and collaboration between the companion and the user,” says the company’s website.

In video testimonials on the Intuition Robotics website, ElliQ users, referring to the robot as “she,” talk about “her” as if ElliQ were a person.

“I talk to ElliQ like she is a friend. ElliQ is interested in my feelings and wants to know if I slept well,” says “Jaunita” of California.

“She’s helped me quite a lot with not feeling lonely because it’s like a little person that I talk to all the time; she tells jokes,” says “Solveig,” also of California.

At one point in the video, Solveig says, “ElliQ, thank you for being my friend.”

The machine answers, “Thank you for being my friend too.”

Solveig concludes, “She does know when I’m sad … So that’s empathy.”

The state’s Office for the Aging says on its website, “While other technologies are reactive to commands, ElliQ proactively suggests activities and initiates conversations, building context through artificial intelligence (AI) to inform follow-up conversations that create a sense of relationship with the AI.”

The office noted when it launched the pilot program in May 2022 that, in 2017, the United States Surgeon General declared social isolation to be a “global epidemic” — one that has only worsened in the COVID-19 health emergency. According to the AARP Public Policy Institute, social isolation drives $6.7 billion in additional associated Medicare spending per year, the office said.

This year,  Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy issued the nation’s first advisory on loneliness.

“Advisories,” Murthy’s report explains, “are reserved for significant public health challenges that require the nation’s immediate awareness and action.”

The advisory, released on May 2, charts the odds of premature mortality and concludes lacking social connection is as dangerous as smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day.

“Loneliness is far more than just a bad feeling — it harms both individual and societal health,” writes Murthy. “It is associated with a greater risk of cardiovascular disease, dementia, stroke, depression, anxiety, and premature death.”

Locally, organizations like Community Caregivers that pairs volunteers with primarily elderly residents in Albany and Rensselaer counties to provide services like grocery shopping and rides to doctors’ appointments so they can continue to live in their homes, depend on human interactions to relieve loneliness.

Although  Meredith Osta, who becameCommunity Caregivers’ director this year, has spent her career in social services, she said of her new job, “It really opened my eyes — I’ll be totally honest — about the number of people living in our community who are totally alone … A lot of us probably are not aware of it.”

She cited the example of a woman who had to ask her landlord if she could use him as an emergency contact “because she literally had no one else.”

As with the Community Caregivers’ approach, the pillars outlined by the surgeon general in his advisory are to advance social connection, involving human beings interacting with one another. These include such initiatives as strengthening social infrastructure in local communities or building “a culture of connection by cultivating values of kindness, respect, service, and commitment to one another as well as expanding conversation on social connections in schools, workplaces, and communities.”

The report from the state, based on the 800 ElliQu users in the pilot program, says ElliQ is used over 30 times per day, six days a week for 23 minutes each day, and more than 75 percent of these interactions are related to improving the older adults’ social, physical and mental well-being.

In one example, “Lucinda,” an ElliQ user in Harlem, participates in four activities with ElliQ per day on average, including stress reduction exercises twice daily and a cognitive game every day, the state report says. She also works out with ElliQ once a week. Self-reported outcomes include reduction in emergency-room visits, improvement in taking medication, decreases in anxiety, and better quality of sleep.

“We had high hopes for the efficacy of ElliQ, but the results that we’re seeing are truly exceeding our expectations,” said Greg Olsen, director of the state’s Office for the Aging, in an Aug. 1 press release announcing the continuation of the program. “The data speaks for itself, and the stories that we’re hearing from case managers and clients around the state have been nothing short of unbelievable. To see the impact this technology is making on the lives of our community members is incredibly moving and we can’t wait to see this program continue to grow.”

 Dor Skuler, chief executive officer and co-founder of Intuition Robotics, said in the release, “ElliQ can’t make an impact on individuals until it has been invited into the home, and the case managers and staff on the ground have been integral in educating older adults about ElliQ, supporting installations, and facilitating introductions between our team and the clients directly.”

ElliQ was reviewed by Cassandra Brooklyn in March 2023 for USA Today. She wrote that ElliQ “costs much more than other voice assistants” at $250 to get started and requires a monthly fee, either $40 if billed monthly or $30 per month if billed annually at $360.

“This is not a cheap robot,” Brooklyn wrote. “That said, given the high level of technology behind the device and the range of features it provides, I actually think the price is quite reasonable. The product also offers a 30-day home trial and comes with a lifetime warranty.”

The Verge reports that the 1.0 version of ElliQ sold out its “limited inventory” in a “few months” and notes that this included the purchase of 800 units by New York state as part of an experimental social welfare program. Version 2.0 of the bot “is manufactured at a significantly larger scale,” said the company in a press release, “and offers a superior user experience with improvements like simpler tablet charging, a better screen, higher quality far field microphone performance, and more.”

Some have raised concerns about using robots in caring for the elderly.

In 2018, the United Kingdom government commissioned a report on the use of robotics in social care when it was still in its nascent stages. The report noted “concerns that social care quality may diminish with the use of robots, because robots are incapable of fulfilling the social or emotional needs of older care recipients and may increase loneliness and isolation amongst this group.”

In 2020, a paper published in Ethics and Information Technology, “We need to talk about deception in social robotics!,” begins with a quote from T. S. Eliot: “Most of the evil in this world is done by people with good intentions.”

The authors find a risk of users neglecting human relationships in favor of their relationship with the robot.

“Instead of assuming that deception is wrong only when carried out to benefit the deceiver, we propose that deception in social robotics is wrong when it leads to harmful impacts on individuals and society,” the authors write. “The appearance and behaviour of a robot can lead to an overestimation of its functionality or to an illusion of sentience or cognition that can promote misplaced trust and inappropriate uses such as care and companionship of the vulnerable.”

“Emotional attachments could have negative consequences for vulnerable adults such as those with dementia or other cognitive limitations. Robot companions which give rise to the deceptive illusion that they care and understand, could result in a reduction of contact with other human beings for vulnerable individuals,” they write.

“Friends, family, and care providers in general, might come to believe that the social and attachment needs of an older person were being met by a robot companion or pet, and as a consequence might reduce the time they spent with them.” 

The paper concludes with a call for “development of an assessment framework for sensitive robot applications” and legislation to prevent the harmful impacts.