No ratings yet.

Put yourself in the shoes of a senior spending his retirement days in a long-term care facility. Aside from meals in the common room, the highlight of your day is a fleeting visit from an overworked caregiver quickly checking your vitals before rushing off to his next resident. While this is a far-off scenario for the audience of a student blog, this will soon become a reality for our parents’ generation.

Populations are aging globally. Life expectancies increase while fertility levels tend to stay low (United Nations, 2023). A development that is also present in the Netherlands. By 2040 the Dutch population is expected to have an old-age dependency ratio of around 46% (Directorate-General for Economic and Financial Affairs, 2024). Additionally, the workforce of caregivers won’t grow proportional to the rising demand.

Therefore, we shaped the mission: to enhance senior care by leveraging AI technology to deliver personalized and proactive care. The solution is a software platform called ElderWatch, which is a Generative AI-powered conversational companion model by delivers values to three major parties: elderly individuals, caregivers, and administrators of LTC facilities.

How does it work:

Every senior of a long-term care home gets his/her elderly assistant, offering them an opportunity to engage in conversations throughout the day. Whether sharing personal matters, discussing politics, or chatting about a famous TV show, the idea is for the senior to spend time with his assistant to prevent feelings of social isolation. Besides the emotional support, the assistant also guides seniors through their day, reminding them of important appointments or helping to comply with their medication schedules. Lastly, the elderly assistant engages in cognitive games with a senior to maintain their cognitive abilities and keep their minds active.

In addition to the seniors, the elderly assistant also benefits the caregivers by allowing for more effective visits. Before each visit a caregiver can generate a briefing report summarizing the most important and recent information on a senior. This allows the caregivers to quickly prepare and personalize their visits. Consequently, a caregiver can manage more seniors throughout the day without compromising the quality of his/her visits.

As all elderly assistants installed in an LTC home gather numerous amounts of data, these homes can leverage insights to improve operational efficiency. Hereby, ElderWatch can benefit the management side of an LTC home.

ElderWatch’s vision is clear: Compensate for the growing gap between demand and supply in elder care with an emphasis on the social well-being of seniors. Therefore, we hope to see a better future for every family with this innovative AI-driven solution.

References:

World Social Report 2023: Leaving no one behind in an aging world. (2023, January 1). DESA Publications. https://desapublications.un.org/publications/world-social-report-2023-leaving-no-one-behind-ageing-world

2024 Ageing Report. Economic and Budgetary Projections for the EU Member States (2022-2070). (2024, April 18). Economy and Finance. https://economy-finance.ec.europa.eu/publications/2024-ageing-report-economic-and-budgetary-projections-eu-member-states-2022-2070_en

No ratings yet.

I have been reading a book called ‘In Search of Memory’ about the origin of neuroscience and how our memory system works. And it reminds me of the connection of our brain and AI.

Our Brain

Some people might think the human brain is just a representative of intelligence. However, the brain makes us everything we are; it determines what we think and do. Just glancing at the sky, catching a ball, or doing an academic experiment all require complex information processing in our brains.

There are about 100 billion neurons with 10 thousand connections with each neuron. The network of neurons interact, and their processing and feedback lead to our thoughts and behavior.

Specialized and General Artificial Intelligence

The current phase of artificial intelligence(specialized) can simulate a single module of our brain functioning, such as reasoning, image and sound perception, and language understanding. In a specific area, AI can be better than humans. For example, AlphaGo defeated the human champion in the Go game, and AI systems have reached the level of professional doctors in diagnosing skin cancer.

The human brain is a general intelligent system that can draw inferences from one instance and integrate knowledge. Many AI models are inspired by the human brain. The way of training these models is to provide input and feedback continuously until the system gives the right answer, and new connections within the system will be made, just like our brain.

Some leading AI companies, such as OpenAI and DeepMind, are searching for ways to simulate this broader functioning of the human brain to deal with more complex and comprehensive tasks. If they succeed, it will lead us to a new era: artificial general intelligence.  

The Future

One of the ultimate goals of neuroscience and philosophy is to understand consciousness. The magic and complexity of the human brain are still too much to explore. Currently, AI is more like a powerful specialist but not a generalist, with a high IQ but less EQ. But can AI finally successfully simulate the human brain and create consciousness? What do you think if there is always a difference between humanity and AI, no matter how far it develops?

No ratings yet.

Artificial intelligence can benefit people in many ways: including health care, legal consultation, and education, but its applications are not always positive for everyone. According to recent news from British bank Starling, they warned that ‘millions’ of people could fall victim because of voice cloning.

Imagine that you post a five-second video on Instagram, but it is enough for the scammers to use AI to generate your voice. They will call your close family or friends to ask for money as your identity. Starling Bank surveyed with Mortar Research and it showed that 46% of respondents did not even know this kind of scam exists. 8% of people will do as the scammers said and transfer as much money as possible. More than one-fourth of people claimed that they had been targeted by this kind of scam during this year.

AI-generated voice can be made convincing by technology like OpenAI’s Voice Engine. It can be designed to enhance the quality of customer service. However good intentions do not always result in good outcomes. When the technology develops, criminals will also develop new ideas to use this technology in their favor.

Have you guys watched ‘Black Mirror’? In my opinion, as AI technology develops, it will penetrate and complicate people’s lives. There is an episode ‘Be Right Back’ about AI simulation for people’s dead loved ones. A girl’s boyfriend died in a car accident, and an AI company provides a service to simulate his voice, ways of thinking, and even body. They seem to live together just like before, but it is never the same person, right?

Question: Do you think the benefit of AI weighs more than its negative effects? How can we cooperate with challenges like this scam? How can we balance innovation with ethical problems?

Source : https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/18/tech/ai-voice-cloning-scam-warning/index.html