Created by C.A. Brantley in MidJourney.

What Happens When There Is No One There?

A cup of coffee, a conversation about AI and assisted living. Or maybe, growing old in the AI age.

What Happens When There Is No One There? A cup of coffee, a conversation about AI and assisted living. Or maybe, growing old in the AI age.

I met my friend the other day, and while talking, I brought up something I had read in a couple of places.

“Did you know they are starting to use AI companions in assisted living now?”

She looked at me over her coffee.

“What do you mean, companions?”

“Exactly what it sounds like. Something you can talk to. It remembers things about you. Asks questions; it keeps you company. They even make them to look like dogs or pets.

She didn’t say anything for a second then,

“Well, I guess that could be a good thing. I am not sure I would want one though. It sounds creepy.”

And that was the problem; it sounds creepy. The thought that any kind of companionship could be a good thing even if it was not real.

I am a visual reader, so what I read, I see. I think that is what disturbed me. I am always following technology happily until they clone a sheep from DNA or create a voice that is not alive but knows you by name, your habits, your medications, your likes, your dislikes. I can see older seniors in my mind’s eye, once lonely and quiet, now talking animatedly to a box.

A box plugged into a wall, hooked into a computer, listening and commenting, as they tell it for the tenth time how their daughter now lives up in New York and works for a fancy law firm. Each room, down a long hallway of doors, with a different elder inside talking about doctors’ visits, medications, conversing about the news, listening to books and music, making a phone call, and being quietly watched for any abnormality before the caregivers are alerted.

Then I start to think about myself and my life now in my sixties, which makes me think, "My coffee is getting cold; I need to get another one.” What I really need is to chase away the chill of that thought.

“I don’t want to end up in one of those places,” I say aloud.

My friend laughed a little. “Nobody does.”

“No. I really don’t.” I emphasized seriously.

And suddenly our coffee conversation wasn’t quite as light as it had been five minutes earlier.

I loved assisted living until we had our parents there. They were treated very well, and maybe my thoughts are not fair. There are good places, and there are certainly amazing people working in elder care who genuinely care about the people they look after. But when I think about assisted living, there is a word that keeps coming into my head.

Warehousing.

I know that’s harsh. But sometimes I wonder if we have confused keeping someone safe with caring for them. A warehouse keeps what is inside protected. Everything is accounted for. Everything has a place. And maybe that is what frightens me.

Being accounted for.

“Breakfast at eight. Medication at nine. Lunch at noon. Bingo at two. Safe. Fed. Clean. Accounted for. But will I still be me?”

My friend was quiet.

I was just rambling now, "Years ago families took care of family. A mother could expect her children to look after her when the time came. A father could expect the same. But being taken care of today means something more now. It is different in many cases.

Family took care of family.

Somewhere along the way, it changed. Families got smaller. People moved away. Families fractured. Everyone became busier. People live longer and need more complicated care. And generations grew up without necessarily expecting that one day an elderly parent or grandparent would become part of their everyday responsibility.

I’m not even sure anyone is to blame for that. It is simply the time we live in. But that doesn’t make it any less scary.

“What happens when there isn’t anyone?” I asked her. She knew what I meant. We connect that way. Not everyone grows old, surrounded by children and grandchildren who can rearrange their lives and take care of them. Sometimes there simply isn’t anyone. And I worried that this might be me. No one there. No advocate for me.

Artwork created by C.A. Brantley in MidJourney

So I worry.

What happens when I can no longer make all of my own decisions? What happens when somebody else decides what I need? Do I get to take my computer? My books? My art supplies? Looking at my cup of coffee… Will I be able to make my own coffee?

Does anyone understand why those things matter?

Then suddenly I realized why an AI companion bothered me so much. It reminded me of something we used to do with children. Turn on the television. Sit here. Watch this. It will keep you entertained while I work on this, or while I cook breakfast, lunch, dinner…

We have come full circle. We aren’t talking about a toddler sitting in front of cartoons. We’re talking about an eighty-five-year-old woman sitting in a room talking to a machine because everyone else is busy.

And here’s the strange part. The machine might be wonderful. It might remember my name. It might remember that I love to paint and draw, or that I was writing an article yesterday on my laptop.

It might tell me good morning or notice that I haven’t been talking very much that day and ask if I’m okay.

And I might love it.

I looked at my friend.

“I think that’s the part that scares me. I might love the attention the AI gives me.”

“What?”

“You know, I come to think I need it.”

Because what if the computer is the one thing in the room that still wants to hear what I have to say? Yes, I know. AI doesn’t really want anything. I fully understand how AI works.

But will that fact matter quite as much to me after spending ten hours alone?

I don’t know.

Maybe AI companions will turn out to be one of the kindest uses we ever find for this technology. Loneliness is real. If a machine can make someone laugh, stimulate a memory, encourage them to paint, remind them to call someone, or simply fill an unbearably quiet afternoon, I can’t say that’s bad.

I wouldn’t take that away from anyone.

I might someday be grateful for it myself.

Artwork created by C.A. Brantley in MidJourney and Photoshop

But I don’t want to mistake it for something it isn’t.

AI cannot care.

Only a human can care.

Someone sitting down when they don’t really have time to sit down and listening to a story they may have already heard. Noticing that the woman who used to paint hasn’t picked up a brush lately. Remembering that the lady or gentleman sitting in that chair across from them had an entire life before they arrived there. They loved, they got angry, they created things, and they had opinions. They were somebody, and they still are. They have history.

Maybe that is what I am actually afraid of when I think about getting very old.

Not death. Not even getting old. But rather losing control of my life. Being physically safe, while everything interesting in life fades away.

I don’t have any answers, and I wish I did.

I can prepare financially. I can make plans. I can tell people what I want. I can write things down. But eventually there may come a point when I don’t get to control all of it. That is especially difficult for someone who has spent an entire lifetime deciding things for herself.

My friend reached for her coffee. It had gone cold.

Mine had too.

“I think we need more coffee,” she said.

I laughed.

“Yeah. We probably do.”

And for the moment, that was enough.

Artwork created by C.A. Brantley in MidJourney