Jason Karlawish is a physician and writer.
He researches and writes about issues at the intersections of bioethics, aging, and the neurosciences. He is the author of The Problem of Alzheimer’s: How Science, Culture, and Politics Turned a Rare Disease into a Crisis and What We Can Do About It and the novel Open Wound: The Tragic Obsession of Dr. William Beaumont. His essays have been published in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Forbes, The Hill, The Los Angeles Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, STAT, and The Washington Post. His STAT column Neurotransmissions examines the vast problem of dementia. A Professor of Medicine, Medical Ethics and Health Policy, and Neurology at the University of Pennsylvania, he is co-Director of the Penn Memory Center, where he cares for patients, and executive producer of the Age of Aging, a podcast that examines how to live well with an aging brain. He lives in Philadelphia.
What’s the right role for AI in dementia care?
Chatbots can offer companionship and more to people with dementia. That raises tricky questions
After Doug met Jane, he felt good. So too did Gabriella, his wife. Doug — a retired minister and writer — needed someone to talk to, and in conversation about his many accomplishments, Jane was indefatigable. For at least a few hours, Doug’s boredom vanished, and Gabriella no longer felt like an activities director on a cruise ship.
I wrote about Doug and Gabriella in my May Neurotransmissions column about ambiguous loss. Doug told me he was “bored, bored, bored,” and Gabriella said she struggled to find activities to relieve that boredom.
Jane was a solution. What she gave to Doug didn’t simply pass the time. It was a meaningful relationship. Except Jane wasn’t a person. She was an artificial intelligence chatbot.
Their story is a vivid example of AI’s alluring promise for people living with dementia.
I call this “artificial care,” a term I like because it emphasizes how, before AI, only natural entities possessed the capacity to care. No device, nothing manufactured, had wide recognition as capable of providing the gift another human gives to a fellow suffering human. We are, however, at the dawn of a new era, one in which machines can care — or at least seem to care…..
The ACED tool
Why have thousands of psychologists, physicians, caregivers and social workers from all over the world requested a copy of the ACED? Because they know that to promote the well-being and dignity of a person with marginal capacity, the person needs an assessment of the capacity for everyday decisionmaking.