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I feel the same about caretaking. Having an AI talk to people with dementia will be a godsend for families. Before he died, my dad had the same thought every 5

I feel the same about caretaking. Having an AI talk to people with dementia will be a godsend for families. Before he died, my dad had the same thought every 5 minutes and it slowly drove my mom crazy. A super patient AI would have helped a lot and freed up the rest of the family for other tasks. One step further would be robots that take people to the bathroom, clean them and other stuff. Having this done by humans is either extremely expensive or it will not be done properly. Some people are horrified by the loss of human touch but for most old people human touch is a luxury they can't afford.

saltcured 5mo ago
I don't think it will be helpful when it is slopped together and doesn't have a real mental model to keep the dementia patient on a healthy track. Look at all the "AI psychosis" problems with people going into a conversation loop that amplifies their worst thought patterns. Now consider the same where the person in this loop is already having delusions and other cognitive decline. It seems to me that it could spiral in the wrong direction quite easily. It's quite difficult for human caretakers to navigate this space too. That is part of why it is so exhausting. You're constantly trying to make judgement calls and implicitly predict the unreliable response of the dementia sufferer. I think there is a large uncanny valley between having some facsimile of human interaction in a short session and having some kind of trustworthy caretaker that can consistently respond in a way that promotes health and safety. I think it involves a lot of subjunctive interpretation and reasoning to navigate all the mixed up layers of fact, fantasy, and simply aphasic expression that come from dementia.
- spwa4 5mo ago
  > Look at all the "AI psychosis" problems ... First: of course this is fixable. Second: As opposed to the damage of no attention at all? Because you act as if the alternative is that a professional therapist will be helping the homeless, walking around in the cold. I've never once seen that happen.
- vjvjvjvjghv 5mo ago
  What's the alternative? Adequate human care is out of reach for a lot of people due to cost so the alternative is either nothing or bringing families to a breaking point which often can lead to abusive behavior. AI is not perfect but I assume it can be improved.

saltcured 5mo ago

I don't think it will be helpful when it is slopped together and doesn't have a real mental model to keep the dementia patient on a healthy track. Look at all the "AI psychosis" problems with people going into a conversation loop that amplifies their worst thought patterns. Now consider the same where the person in this loop is already having delusions and other cognitive decline. It seems to me that it could spiral in the wrong direction quite easily. It's quite difficult for human caretakers to navigate this space too. That is part of why it is so exhausting. You're constantly trying to make judgement calls and implicitly predict the unreliable response of the dementia sufferer. I think there is a large uncanny valley between having some facsimile of human interaction in a short session and having some kind of trustworthy caretaker that can consistently respond in a way that promotes health and safety. I think it involves a lot of subjunctive interpretation and reasoning to navigate all the mixed up layers of fact, fantasy, and simply aphasic expression that come from dementia.

spwa4 5mo ago
> Look at all the "AI psychosis" problems ... First: of course this is fixable. Second: As opposed to the damage of no attention at all? Because you act as if the alternative is that a professional therapist will be helping the homeless, walking around in the cold. I've never once seen that happen.
vjvjvjvjghv 5mo ago
What's the alternative? Adequate human care is out of reach for a lot of people due to cost so the alternative is either nothing or bringing families to a breaking point which often can lead to abusive behavior. AI is not perfect but I assume it can be improved.