will make technological solutions
unavoidable. Joseph Coughlin, PhD,
director of MIT’s AgeLab, is pragmatic.
“I would always prefer the human
touch over a robot,” he says. “But if
there’s no human available, I would
take high tech in lieu of high touch.”C
are.Coach is an amalgam of
both. The service conveys the
perceptiveness and emotional
intelligence of the humans powering
it but masquerades as an animated
app. One concern is how cognizant
seniors are of being watched over by
strangers. By default, the app explains
to patients that someone is surveilling
them when it’s first introduced. But if
a person is incapable of consenting to
Care.coach’s monitoring, then some-
one must do so on his or her behalf.
Arlyn didn’t worry about deceiving
her dad. Telling Jim about the human
on the other side of the screen “would
have blown the whole charm of it,” shesays. Even Care.coach users who are
completely aware of the person on
the other end of the dashboard tend
to experience the avatar as something
between human, pet, and machine.
When Arlyn first signed up for the
service, she hadn’t anticipated that
she would end up loving—yes, loving,
she says—the avatar as well. She
taught Pony to say “yeah, sure, you
betcha” and “don’t-cha know” like a
Minnesotan, which made her laugh
even more than it did her dad. When
Arlyn collapsed onto the couch after a
long day of caretaking, Pony piped up:
“Arnie, how are you?” (“Arnie” is the
family’s nickname for Arlyn.)
Alone, Arlyn petted the screen—
the way Pony nuzzled her finger was94 dec 2018 ✦ jan 2019
courtesy arlyn anderson (2)Jim at Flying Cloud
Airport in Minnesota
(left), and with
his wife, Dorothy
(below)