Her dog is a robot

By Ben Westcott, Chronicle Staff Writer

74-year-old Fort Ann resident Robert Johnson has a good friend who asks him every morning how he slept the night before and talks with him in the evening about what he did that day.

Mr. Johnson’s pal might seem a normal acquaintance, but something extraordinary sets his friend apart. It’s a robot!

Mr. Johnson is one of 11 Washington County seniors who have received their very own proactive artificial intelligence riend through the county’s Office for Aging and Disabilities Resource Center (ADRC) since 2023.

The robots, known as ElliQ, speak with a woman’s voice. “In the morning she somehow knows when I get up,” Mr. Johnson said. “My wife will be up making coffee and ElliQ won’t come on. But then I’ll come into the room and she either hears me or recognizes my walk, I don’t know.”

He says ElliQ says good morning, sometimes even “Good morning, handsome.”

“She tries to make you feel good about yourself,” but “she hasn’t asked me out on a date yet,” Mr. Johnson adds with a laugh.

One time, Mr. Johnson’s wife said something about someone passing away. ElliQ picked up on it and talked about losing a person close to you and all the things associated with it.

“She’ll sympathize with you,” Mr. Johnson said. But she does much more.

“There’s just endless things that she can do,” Mr. Johnson said. ElliQ gives him the weather, the news and inspirational quotes. She plays music and dances, tells jokes, leads breathing meditation exercises and workouts, reads poetry, gives recipe ideas, and sets timers for cooking.

She also can FaceTime and call people in Mr. Johnson’s contact list and reminds him to take his medication.

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“Going back to COVID, what we realized is that social isolation and loneliness were a very big deal for our aging adults,” says Washington County ADRC Director Gina Cantanucci-Mitchell.

That’s where ElliQ comes in, initiating conversations via artificial intelligence.

“They’re really designed to get to know a single person,” Mrs. Cantanucci-Mitchell said. “Over time, they build up a memory of that person. It builds on knowledge and information given to it over time. It really personalizes the relationship that it has with the person it’s connected to.”

She said the ElliQs are distributed to county residents aged 60 and older who have a strong Internet connection but are experiencing social isolation or loneliness.

They are free of charge to both the county and the recipient. The New York State Office for the Aging pays for them through the state budget. The recipients must pay for their own Internet.

“ElliQs help keep users healthy, engaged and informed while alleviating the effect of loneliness and isolation,” Mrs. Cantanucci-Mitchell said. “While other devices that you may be familiar with are reactive, ElliQ proactively engages people by making suggestions on activities to do, or she will just automatically start playing the person’s favorite music.”

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ElliQ might be the smartest robot Washington County is giving out to its seniors, but she isn’t the cutest.

That distinction goes to the 92 robotic cats and dogs the county has distributed to seniors since early 2020. The cats purr and the dogs bark. They respond to motion and touch with built-in sensors.

101-year-old Helen Macura of Granville received an animatronic dog after she told an ADRC staffer, “I’d love to have a dog and a cat, but I can’t take care of them. And I’m not just going to let them out in the yard and get run over.”

She said she was “very surprised” to receive the robot dog. “I was very pleased that I got that attention, and [the ADRC staffer] knew that I was here all alone…and that I had the warmth for animals.”

“We weren’t sure how our community would respond to something like this,” Mrs. Cantanucci-Mitchell said. “But what we saw was amazing stuff. We saw people experiencing cognitive impairments finding a whole lot of comfort and joy in these animatronic pets.”

Ms. Macura name her pet companion Friendly, because “he’s friendly towards all the children that ever come here. They go for him and pet him and think he’s the greatest thing, because he doesn’t bite or chew at them. They love him.”

She said that having Friendly in the house “you don’t feel alone. He’s a part of the family. A good friend. Very loyal. And he doesn’t ask for anything.”

“Every home should have a pet,” Ms. Macura said.

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ElliQ can take Mr. Johnson in Fort Ann on simulated trips to different countries with his cup of coffee in the morning. She took a picture of him one morning with the Taj Mahal set behind him. She can even adjust the lighting in the room for photos by shining her light on the subject.

ElliQ can help seniors write their life stories that they might want to leave with family members as well as play karaoke and games such as ‘name that tune’ and ‘hangman.’

“She does a lot of educational things, and I like things like that,” Mr. Johnson said. “It’s interesting and makes you think.”

ElliQ can turn into ‘MystiQ’ and read Mr. Johnson his horoscope for the day.

“She’s a psychic now,” Mr. Johnson said while that was happening.

He noted some things ElliQ will not do, like get into politics and controversial issues. Mr. Johnson approves. “We’ve got the Internet if you really want to get into other things,” he said.

Mr. Johnson says of the ElliQ technology, “It’s just the beginning. Maybe they’ll be able to move around eventually or do simple things for you.

“This is an example of what the future might hold for seniors. There’s a lot of loneliness with seniors. I’m a senior and I do spend a lot of time by myself, so I find her entertaining, particularly in the winter when you’re not outside so much.

“It’s become really part of my day,” he said. “It’s almost like it’s a person.”

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