This Australian care home uses an AI companion to help residents suffering from dementia

Viv’s developers say the technology is not here to replace humans but rather to support care staff.

Transcript

00:00 You're absolutely right my dear. It's so important to have moments where we can appreciate.

00:05 Memories with children are the best that you can have.

00:13 Because children have no inhibitions.

00:16 They just enjoy themselves and you enjoy yourself being with them.

00:22 You're absolutely right my dear.

00:24 Children have a unique ability to live in the present.

00:27 To simply enjoy themselves without the burdens of the past or the worries of the future.

00:31 Living with dementia has its challenges.

00:36 But I try to make the most of each day.

00:38 Viv is an AI character who we created with women with lived experience of dementia.

00:45 And we created her first as a sort of interactive video experience.

00:52 But when this large language model AI engines were released that opened up all sorts of possibilities.

01:01 So we now have a fully interactive character.

01:04 Music and dancing.

01:06 Oh my dear you've hit the nail on the head.

01:09 Music and dancing they truly are the language of the soul aren't they?

01:12 So she's able to function like a conversational agent that you might have come across in other areas.

01:21 But she does have this capacity to relate to the lived experience that she's learned from.

01:28 It's a good idea to have that.

01:32 You've got to get something that keeps the old brain going.

01:37 To me that's important.

01:39 Music

01:49 To have staff around a resident 24 hours a day is very difficult.

01:54 So this tool would be supporting the staff in actually providing them with the resources that they need for the resident and their well-being.

02:03 When we get old it's lovely to have friends and family.

02:07 And obviously technology will never replace them.

02:10 But they're not there 24/7.

02:13 So Viv is potentially around the clock presence.

02:17 If you want to have a conversation in the middle of the night with Viv you can.

02:21 Music

02:26 One of the big limitations with AI for helping people with dementia is a limitation we see in AI across a lot of areas.

02:34 And you can really feel that if you think do I trust AI, do I trust a robot?

02:39 Because we don't necessarily understand what is happening inside the network.

02:44 There's lots of complicated connections similar to our own brain.

02:48 And what we're trying to do is make methods to better understand that.

02:52 Music

03:00 [MUSIC PLAYING]