NY State Giving Away Hundreds Of Robots As Companions For Elderly

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NY State Giving Away Hundreds Of Robots As Companions For Elderly

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Jun 26, 2022

Photo: Getty Images

The state of New York is giving away over 800 robot companions to help combat social isolation among the elderly. There’s a silent epidemic in the West: “vitamin S” deficiency. The “S” stands for “social relations,” and the side effects can be as bad for health as those for other more well-known risk factors like poor diet, not exercising, and smoking.

To combat this problem, the state of New York is using a novel approach: distributing hundreds of robot companions to older residents. The plan is being organized through the New York State Office of the Aging (NYSOFA) and is targeted at older residents who live alone.

The robot is named ElliQ and is produced by Isreali company Intuition Robotics. ElliQ is stationary, so it can’t do household chores, but it can help its owner remember stuff or find information, crack jokes, and share pictures and do video calls with its built-in screen. The idea is meant to improve the well-being of people over 75 who live alone and hopefully lower their risk of death, but only time will tell if the experiment will pay off.

[Epic]

How different are these from Alexa and google?