The Tombot Inc. hyper-realistic autonomous dog robot companion for the elderly and those unable to have a living pet dog is demonstrated during CES Unveiled ahead of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, on Jan. 4. AFP-TNS

At first glance, AI companions for lonely seniors can seem dystopian, looking less like innovation than a bleak sign of social failure.

Spending a couple days last week in Tokyo nursing homes, I watched plushie robots the size of human babies being handed to aging parents and grandparents, and prototypes of conversational dolls aimed to fill gaps when family, community and human care fall short.

It reminded me of showing ChatGPT’s advanced voice mode to my own 97-year-old grandfather last summer, shortly after my grandmother passed away. He was appalled, making clear he had no interest in chatting with the artificially cheery voice.

And yet my instinct to recoil at this all collides with a harder reality. Japan, like much of Asia, is aging fast and running short of caregivers. It’s no surprise that policymakers are turning to technology. The nation is expected to face a shortage of 570,000 care workers by 2040, making the search for solutions increasingly urgent. And the meteoric rise of AI makes companion robots an attractive policy goal.

But they’re no panacea. They may have a place in the future of care, but the bigger risk is that governments and companies will use them to dodge the harder fixes required to treat care work as essential infrastructure. This involves increasing wages, supporting seniors who want to live at home, and focusing on targeted tech solutions that help people maintain independence as they age.

Japan,........

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