“Hello, I'm calling from the Madrid City Council, from the Chamartín district. I'm Paloma, the virtual assistant, can I talk to Teresa?” asks a robotic voice over the phone. On the other side of the speaker, Teresa, over 75 years old who lives alone, answers with “Yes, it's me.” For the next two minutes, the machine asks five questions to determine Teresa's level of loneliness. Do you consider that she relies on family and friends when something worries her? Does she go out on the street at least once a week? Does she receive visitors? The woman confesses to the machine, which records each response with a “thank you for telling me,” or “I'll let you know.” When asked if she feels alone, Teresa responds that she “many times does” and subsequently accepts the help offered by the software for an Administration technician to evaluate your situation. This conversation has been replicated with more than two thousand Madrid residents within the framework of a City Hall pilot program which uses artificial intelligence to detect unwanted loneliness. The initiative has revealed that one in three seniors who live in a single-person home have confessed to feeling lonely.
Paloma is the virtual assistant of the City Council created by Telefónica. Between November 28 and December 8, 2023, it made more than 16,000 calls to people over 75 years of age who reside alone in the capital, of which in 2,071 cases they managed to complete the questionnaire. Some 646 people who agreed to speak with Paloma accepted an intervention from the City Council to alleviate the feeling of loneliness. The districts that answered the most calls were Moncloa-Aravaca, Villaverde and Villa de Vallecas, as reported this Friday by José Fernández, delegate of Social Policies, Family and Equality of the City Council, in charge of presenting the balance of the program. Fernández has highlighted the parity in the data for men and women to conclude that “there is no gender gap” when talking about loneliness.
Silvia Saavedra, general director of the Elderly and Prevention of Unwanted Loneliness of the City Council, mentioned this Friday that mistrust is the main challenge for Paloma, which is why they are studying how to provide guarantees to those who take the call so that they do not think that it is about a fraud. One of the measures in this sense is that the AI confirms the district of the interlocutor, “to generate greater trust”, data that it takes from the municipal registry.
Daniel Bernabéu, president of the Amyts medical union, points out that “in a current environment of fraud and scams against the elderly, many by telephone, expecting an elderly person to trust a municipal AI system is giving rise to them being able to simulate the same voice and request confidential information for a scam.” Consequently, the health worker considers that “some security system would have to be added.” Teresa Moreno, from the Spanish Society of Neurology, supports initiatives that use artificial intelligence to combat unwanted loneliness. Regarding the Madrid project, the neurogeriatrician highlights that “the questions are well asked” and she sees the program as “a very useful tool, because it reaches many people very quickly to detect who needs assistance and who does not.”
The results of Paloma's work have been presented in the assembly hall of the Antonio Mingote Municipal Center for the Elderly, in Chamberí, one of the 91 in the City Council that serves as a shelter for the elderly who do not want to stay at home. Seniors come alone and with others to the cafeteria in this center, which offers prices lower than those on the market, to have their morning coffee, read the newspaper or play dominoes. The group of Carmen García, Yolanda Muñoz and Pilar Arias, whose ages range between 78 and 83 years, meet in this place. García, who lives alone and declares herself “independent,” regrets that technological advances have not improved the quality of life of the elderly: “The world of medicine has given us more years, but with a great void, without content.”
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The three friends declare themselves lucky to have each other, although they are aware that “there are people who need company,” as Muñoz says, who encourages the Administration to intervene in the cases of the elderly who have no one to share breakfast with. “That they encourage them to interact,” she claims.
The City Council assures that this is where the shots go, specifying that the 646 seniors who admitted feeling alone have entered into “a process of social intervention and monitoring.” “378 have been contacted, 63%, and attempts to communicate with the rest continue. A total of 236 have already accepted assessment through a home visit, of which 143 have already been carried out,” the City Council states in a statement.
With family, but alone
The results of the City Council's pilot program show that 85% of older adults who confessed to feeling alone have family or friends to turn to when something worries them. Even more, among the 1,872 who stated they had someone in case of need, 78% experienced unwanted loneliness. The report takes these data to conclude that “there is no direct relationship” between having a support network and the absence of loneliness.
Fernández has emphasized one of the answers that Teresa gave to artificial intelligence, when she asked her about her loved ones. The woman responded that she did have a family, but that she “did not want
to bother”, an argument similar to that of Salvador Albarrán, an 82-year-old widower, and Antonino Redondo González, 87, consulted by EL PAÍS. The first states: “I don't want to bother my daughters,” so he makes do with the senior center where he goes to read the newspaper to “collect words” in his notebook, a hobby he keeps from his time as a literature teacher. .
Along the same lines, Redondo specifies: “I have my family, but they have their life and I have mine,” so he prefers to meet his friends at the Antonio Mingote to play tute. “I live alone at home, in the morning I take a one-hour walk and come here. At one o'clock I go home, eat, rest a little until 4:30 p.m. and return to the center again, where I continue having fun with my colleagues until 8:30 p.m.,” says this retiree who also frequents the center on Sagasta Street or the by Alonso Cano.
61% of people who stated that they do not leave the house or be visited have expressed feeling alone, a figure that drops to 46% for those who do receive guests at home or up to 36% for those who go out for a walk.
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