Should AI Help People Stay In Touch?

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by David Hagenbuch - professor of marketing at Messiah University -
​author of Honorable Influence - founder of Mindful Marketing -
author of Mindful Marketing: Business Ethics that Stick 

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When was the last time you spoke with your mom or dad? For adult children with their own families and demanding jobs, time between conversations with their aging parents can quickly become days or weeks. At a time when there seems to be a technological solution for every problem, it’s not surprising that there’s an app for that, but do we really want our moms and dads chatting with AI instead of with us?
 
InTouch is an internet-based subscription service that allows customers to enlist Mary, a pleasant and engaging AI agent, to have phone conversations with their aging parents. AI Touch s.r.o., a Czech Republic company that appears to own InTouch, offers several sample conversations on its website.
 
The site also provides some compelling rationale for the service, such as:

• Stimulating the loved ones’ minds
• Supporting their emotional well-being
• Strengthening family connections

 
The company adds, “We go beyond small talk, discussing family, hobbies, memories, and even brain teasers to keep [the older parents’] mind active and spirits lifted.” The firm also promises to provide a short summary of each call so the subscriber can know how their parent is doing, or if they didn’t answer the phone.
 
Ultimately, inTouch aims to address a customer pain point that’s increasingly common for a particular generation of people who often must care for two sets of loved ones simultaneously: their own children and their aging parents. The caught-in-the-middle phenomenon has spawned the fitting term "the sandwich generation."
 
The age cohort that’s currently most likely to find itself in the middle is Generation X, whose members, born between 1965 and 1980, are 45 to 60 years old. Studies have shown that the pull of two-way caregiving places unique strain on Gen X’s time, as well as on their financial and mental health.
 
I am one of those Gen Xs who recently lived the sandwich experience. My father passed away less than four years ago, and my mother a little more than a year. Given a variety of physical challenges as well as worsening dementia, my mom required a particularly great amount of care in the years leading up to her passing.
 
At the same time, my wife and I were not yet empty nesters, and we both had demanding full-time jobs. Often it was difficult to balance the competing demands placed upon us.
 
Although that time was not long ago, AI agent-based services like InTouch didn’t exist then, or at least I didn’t know about them. If InTouch has been available to me, should I have used it to interact with my mother?
 
As just mentioned, I have firsthand experience similar to that of inTouch’s target market, which helps me envision the service’s pros and cons. However, I’m not an expert on older adults or the multifaceted social and psychological dynamics surrounding the aging process, so I reached out to someone who is.
 
Dr. Raeann Hamon is Distinguished Professor of Family Science and Gerontology at Messiah University. Her meaningful research, impactful writing, and influential leadership over several decades have gained her international renown. Moreover, she’s a thoughtful and compassionate person who wants the best for others.
 
I shared inTouch’s website with Dr. Hamon and asked if she would offer her perspective on the service. She graciously agreed.
 

Dr. Hamon acknowledged inTouch’s “great sales pitch” to time-strapped adult children who feel the challenge of caring for older family members, including engaging in what can be long, repetitive conversations. She pointed to the website’s promises to stimulate the mind, support emotional well-being, and reassure and connect you, which she said on the surface seem like positive applications of AI.
 
However, Dr. Hamon’s overriding reaction to InTouch was one of  sadness and concern about AI replacing real human interaction with older family members. She explained her unease:
 
“The problem for me is that connections between aging adults and their adult children, grandchildren, friends, neighbors, and caregivers are irreplaceable. It’s not possible to duplicate them with machines, nor should we try. In my opinion, humans need to prioritize togetherness and share the depth of feelings possible in direct relationship with each other.”
 
At the same time, she was circumspect, recognizing that there are unique situations that might warrant special consideration:
 
“Perhaps there are older adults who are socially isolated and have no extended family. Maybe this would be useful for them. But even then, I would argue that such a situation offers an opportunity for neighbors to reach out to make connections. What would we say if busy parents employed a similar AI application for interacting with their children? Where does it end?”
 
Ultimately, she maintained that if there is a place for a service like inTouch, “it should be for the benefit of the older parent, not the adult child.”
 
Dr. Hamon’s reflections resonated with me. I’m sure I speak for my sisters when I say that as we cared for our aging parents, it was always with the goal of making their later years as comfortable and enjoyable as possible. From what our parents said and showed, a large part of that enjoyment came from being with and talking with us.
 
In the month before my father died, I had several opportunities to drive him around the areas that used to be his sales territory for the promotional products company he started, which became our family business. As his mind was still very sharp, we had many great conversations that included fond memories of the places and people we knew.
 
My mother’s situation was different. Because of worsening dementia, she experienced many years of progressive mental decline that eventually challenged her to recall even the most basic facts about herself and her family. Still, she maintained a very positive attitude through her final days and continued to cherish conversations with her loved ones.
 
My sisters and I also treasured those times and talks with our parents. We didn’t know then how long they would last, but we realized they were limited, which made them priceless then and now.
 
Dr. Hamon feels the same way. Beyond her professional roles, she’s a person who has experienced many of the familial dynamics she researches, writes about, and teaches. As a daughter she says, “I would never trade a minute with either of my parents.”
 
These experiences of mine, my siblings, and Dr. Hamon lead me to believe that even as inTouch offers an arguably helpful service to time-strapped adult children, it may be doing a disservice to them by taking away some of the most important and meaningful interactions of their lives: time-bound, person-specific experiences and that no technology can replicate or replace.
 
Each day, AI gets better at imitating human interactions. As it does, more people likely will allow daily discrete chatbot inquiries to “morph into companionship.” Such an evolution seems like a precarious path for humanity.

In many ways inTouch’s intentions are noble, but as Dr. Hamon suggests, the service seems like a step down the precarious path of technological relationships replacing human ones – a course that in this case is charted by Single-Minded Marketing.
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