Towards Designing a ChatGPT Conversational Companion for Elderly People
This addresses a serious health and quality-of-life problem for elderly people, but it is incremental as it applies an existing AI model to a new domain.
The paper tackled loneliness and social isolation in elderly people by proposing a ChatGPT-based conversational companion system, with a preliminary study showing it generated relevant responses to elderly personas.
Loneliness and social isolation are serious and widespread problems among older people, affecting their physical and mental health, quality of life, and longevity. In this paper, we propose a ChatGPT-based conversational companion system for elderly people. The system is designed to provide companionship and help reduce feelings of loneliness and social isolation. The system was evaluated with a preliminary study. The results showed that the system was able to generate responses that were relevant to the created elderly personas. However, it is essential to acknowledge the limitations of ChatGPT, such as potential biases and misinformation, and to consider the ethical implications of using AI-based companionship for the elderly, including privacy concerns.