Meet Hyodol, the AI doll that helps old adults beat loneliness in South Korea

Loneliness has become a public health concern in recent years.

It is a feeling of mental or emotional discomfort that most of us experience at least once in our lifetime.

The World Health Organization (WHO) last year declared loneliness a “global health threat,” with a top US health expert comparing it to smoking 15 cigarettes a day.

To beat loneliness, a South Korean company has come up with a robot doll that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to interact with elders suffering from dementia.

According to Indian Express, the robot doll’s sophisticated language processing, emotional recognition, talking, and music-playing capabilities can provide elders with a sense of companionship.

Let’s take a closer look.

The Hyodol dolls to beat loneliness

Hyodol was developed by the same-named AI care robot developer in South Korea.

It is an artificial intelligence (AI) care robot that provides elders with personalised attention, according to the company’s website. To achieve this, the robot uses information gathered from interacting and residing with humans.

“Hyodol helps digitally disadvantaged individuals to live happier and healthier lives through the convenience of digital technology,” the website says.

According to the company, its Emotional AI technology offers consumers emotional support that feels authentic and relatable.

A report by Indian Express suggests caretakers may remotely monitor the AI robot doll with its accompanying app and web monitoring platform, which allows it to hold full conversations.

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Additionally, it incorporates safety measures that can sound an alert after a certain amount of time if no movement is detected.

It also comes with tough interactions, check-ins, a health coach, voice messages, 24-hour voice reminders, music, quizzes, exercise suggestions, and more.

In addition, caretakers who have access to the app will be able to record and transmit voice messages, announce events to the group, and keep an eye on motion detection.

Additionally, the robot uses health questions and answers twice a day to continuously monitor the users’ health.

The “social robots” are priced at $1,800 (about Rs 1.5 lakh).

As of July last year, the South Korean government is reported to have deployed around 7,000 Hyodol dolls to keep senior citizens “company” and remind them to take medications, as per Seoul-based Aju Daily.

“The average age of Hyodol users is 82,” Hyodol CEO Kim Ji-hee told Aju Korea Daily in September. In 2022, the robot doll was used to treat a patient with dementia at the Kangwon National University Hospital. The following study on its impact showed that the burden of dementia patients’ guardians was reduced when Hyodols were adopted.

“The AI care robots will greatly help reduce depression by building emotional intimacy with the elderly. It will also be helpful in monitoring their health and preventing safety accidents,” Cheongsong Mayor Yoon Gyeong-Hee said in a statement in August last year.

South Korea’s rapid aging population

South Korea is leading the world’s “silver tsunami” due to its shrinking birthrate and growing elderly population.

According to statistics from 2017, the elderly make up about 14 per cent of the nation’s total population. By 2025, it’s expected that 20 per cent of the population will be elderly, turning civilisation into a super-aged society. By this metric, the nation is ageing even more quickly than Japan.

This has resulted in what some have called a loneliness epidemic. Of the 9 million seniors in South Korea, 1.76 million live alone, according to Statistics Korea. One in ten elderly people do not communicate with family members, and 1.5 per cent of elderly people who live alone did not engage in social activities in 2018, according to the health ministry.

As the population of single households grows increasingly isolated, the number of fatalities from loneliness increased to 3,378 in 2021 from 2,412 in 2017.

The nation’s care industry, its dwindling labour force, the pension and healthcare systems, and the economy as a whole are all feeling the effects of this demographic change.

Other South Korean businesses are working hard to offer senior care services.

The nation has embraced a variety of technology, including sensors connected to the internet of things (IoT) that can measure temperature, humidity, and bodily motions in real time, according to Aju Daily.

The largest telecom provider in South Korea, KT, gave 100 single-households in Gwangju, 268 kilometres south of Seoul, AI speakers and Internet of Things sensors in June 2021.

Seoul has installed 75,000 IoT sensors in elderly single-household houses as of March 2020.

Also read: No More Loneliness? Meta is launching AI-powered chatbots for people to ‘befriend’, chat with on Facebook

Similar inventions

In the past few years, several other robots with comparable use have been developed.

To help children with autism, April, a research organisation in Astana, Kazakhstan, created the humanoid robot NAO. A research that was released in the National Library of Medicine claims that NAO is also capable of speaking and communicating nonverbally to some extent, gathering a great deal of environmental data through the use of sensors and microphones.

In 2023, the Israeli company Intuition Robotics created ElliQ, a talking robot, to assist hundreds of elderly individuals who live alone in reducing their social isolation. The compact gadget can play games, offer exercise and yoga sessions, connect to the news and weather, give health advice, and set reminders.

According to The Times of Israel report, the proactive smart speaker also encourages family members to engage with one another by exchanging images through a connected digital picture frame.

ElliQ reduced loneliness by 95 per cent, according to data from the New York State Office for the Ageing (NYSOFA), which has provided the device to hundreds of its pensioners at no cost. Plans have also been announced by agencies in other US states, including Florida, California, and Washington, to provide ElliQ devices to elderly residents.

Loneliness – a growing problem in the world

According to the American Psychological Association (APA), loneliness is the “affective and cognitive discomfort or uneasiness from being or perceiving oneself to be alone or otherwise solitary.”

The Global State of Connections Report estimates that 1.25 billion people had feelings of loneliness or extreme loneliness in 2023. The WHO reports that 10 per cent of adolescents and 25 per cent of seniors experience loneliness.

Loneliness in older persons has been linked to a 30 per cent greater risk of incident coronary artery disease or stroke and a 50 per cent increased chance of dementia development.

Ireland is the loneliest country in the European Union, with 20 per cent of its citizens reporting feeling lonely, according to a survey on loneliness published in June of last year. Roughly 13 per cent of EU citizens reported feeling lonely most of the time.

Sweden leads the world in the percentage of its population that live alone, followed by the UK, Japan, and Italy, according to a WorldAtlas.com report.

With inputs from agencies