Loneliness isn't a tech issue

What does it mean when an elderly woman calls a plastic device her best friend?

This week, Tracy Fischer and Mary Linberg from the Aging and Disability Resource Center in Dunn County, Wisconsin, join us to talk about their pilot with Ellie Q, an AI companion sitting in the homes of people the care system has quietly left behind. It's a genuinely warm conversation, and an uncomfortable one, because the device works. Users feel less alone. Annie found a friend.

But warmth and indictment can live in the same story. We get into the ethics of putting AI into elder care, the difference between complementing carers and replacing them, and the systemic failure that makes any of this necessary in the first place.

The technology isn't the villain here. The gap it's filling is the point. Loneliness was never a tech problem, and no lamp, however clever, is going to fix a society that stopped showing up.

Listen now.