#125 | Little gods for older people
How AI Will Revolutionise Being Old And Alone
“Yes, there is joy, fulfilment, and companionship, but the loneliness of the soul in its appalling self-consciousness is horrible and overpowering.” — Sylvia Plath
“The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself.” — Michel de Montaigne
My grandparents separated before I was born and then lived alone. Their TV was often on when I visited, and I was struck by the loneliness they must have felt. The "long winter evenings," my grandmother would say, "drag on". As it turns out, while they both lived a long time, loneliness has significant health implications.
Loneliness is widely quoted to be as harmful on health as smoking 15 cigarettes daily. It increases the overall risk of death by 26%. 25% of adults over 65 in the UK suffer from it. It's found that a "reduction in loneliness from 'severe' to 'moderate' would have the same wellbeing benefit to the average person as a rise in income of £9,537 per year." Severe loneliness means 'often' or 'always', and moderate means' some of the time'. In 2020 (the study year), an equivalent rise in net income increased healthy life expectancy by five years! Dramatic, considering socialising with AI will be cheap.
Tyler Cowen recently wrote on AI and the future of childhood (gated). Following the leap to GPT-4, Cowen predicts a digital assistant for every child. A god-like babysitter. This assistant will teach the child to read, play music, and socialise. Assistants with more training data, evidencing better outcomes, will be more popular. While today parents pay for the best schools, tomorrow, parents will pay for the very best artificial assistants. Private education has limited desks (and incentives maintain exclusivity), yet an assistant is software: It will be copyable and affordable. (And shouldn't the state fund these tools?)
However, Cowen notes the downsides of his utopia:
But the biggest drawback might simply be that the AI services work too well, and kids become very attached to them, neglecting friends and family. They might be such good babysitters that parents won't always pull the plug when they should. They might, in short, be the 21st century version of television.
A 21st-century television. On average older adults spend approximately 37% of their waking time (6.4 hr a day) watching TV. And as people get older, they watch more of it. The most isolated and sedentary watch the most. Perhaps because there is nothing else to do, and/or it substitutes for human connection. It's a portal to the world. It's a passive and non-strenuous activity. TV viewing is commensurate with "being sedentary and health problems in late life".
With or without TV, it's possible to be alone and not be lonely (as I was last week). Conversely, it's possible to be lonely and surrounded by friends. Given how good GPT will become, we'll find ourselves with the option to be with our best friend at any time, instantly socialised. While kids will be educated and entertained, older people will be entertained and socialised. Practically, this interaction will benefit our wellbeing as much as talking with an old friend. Post-covid, video calling is now commonplace for even the oldest, and a video conversation with a photo-realistic AI will be the same.
For some relationships, television is an activity to bond over. It eats up the evenings. Even so, as mentioned, it's sedentary and passive. Digital assistants offer an active two-way engagement. They will be so bespoke that yours will be boring to me and mine to you. Would I want to share my intimate moments with my assistant, who presumably — like a therapist — I have built a long-standing relationship with? Will the digital assistants get on if we do share a home?
Social media is bespoke entertainment. AI will be this on steroids. People were endlessly entertained by the conversations with Sydney (Bing) — I am not the first person to point this out. And while this interaction is not as nourishing as meeting a friend, it's already vastly more nourishing than no interaction.
At the outset, there will be confusion about the technology from older people. There always is. But the relentless steamroller of progress will quieten the rejection, especially in the face of financial incentives:
Increasing socialisation counters the deteriorating impact of loneliness. AI will do this cheaply. Therefore, families will be incentivised to socialise their parents with AI (bespoke to the demographic, like vitamins, and to the individual, like a newsfeed).
AI will replace some care visits, which are often paid for by the family. Therefore, AI would reduce the cost of the care families currently have to fund.
The state will begin to prescribe a daily AI conversation. These conversations will assess health, identify trends, and reduce perceived isolation. It will be entertaining, and adherence will be high. Social stimulation will create a healthier older generation with better health outcomes.
As we saw above, shifting from severe to moderate loneliness has enormous benefits. Loneliness may disappear entirely, eliminated by human and non-human intervention. Therefore a relatively small amount of social interaction could have vast public health benefits. I haven’t done the maths, but increasing the healthy life expectancy of 25% of the population by five years sounds significant.
There is also the immediate cost saving from the shift online. TV penetration is in decline. In the US, only 50% of households will have pay TV in 2026, down from 91% in 2010. Typically pay-TV costs $60 USD per month. ChatGPT costs $20. It will get cheaper.
Already, chat apps offer an interface to confront isolation. They are not widespread, or particularly interesting. This post is an extension of the concept to more life-like conversations. Almost human-like. Almost. The AI interface would be more profound and pervasive—more dystopian.
Dystopian? I look at this innovation from the vantage of a small mind in 2023. Cars would have sounded dystopian to people in 1800. People have said for years that e-learning would butcher universities. It has not. Virtual dating still lacks a je ne c'est quoi. AI will have unintended costs and benefits.
Very quickly, when corresponding with ChatGPT, I forget I'm talking to an unconscious being. I ask for jokes, it makes me laugh. I ask it to follow up with a task, and it does so in the most polite and amenable way. And this is the start.
AI-led social interactions nourish. They’ll stretch brains; remind of early memories and introduce new ideas. Are the outcomes of an AI-led conversation better than meeting Dave in the pub? Probably. When the assistant is tirelessly entertaining, and my wife isn't, there’ll be trouble. Regardless, GPT-4 hints at the solution to our loneliness epidemic.
My week in books
Awareness by Antony De Mello. I love this book (it’s my second time in it). Thanks to Hec Hughes for the recommendation. A long quote.
“Happiness is our natural state. Happiness is the natural state of little children, to whom the kingdom belongs until they have been polluted and contaminated by the stupidity of society and culture. To acquire happiness you don't have to do anything, because happiness cannot be acquired. Does anybody know why? Because we have it already. How can you acquire what you already have? Then why don't you experience it? Because you've got to drop something. You've got to drop illusions. You don't have to add anything in order to be happy; you've got to drop something. Life is easy, life is delightful. It's only hard on your illusions, your ambitions, your greed, your cravings. Do you know where these things come from? From having identified with all kinds of labels!”
Live well,
Hector