Can AI make older adults feel less lonely?

In reference to the elderly, creating faux kids, grand-kids or parents based on machine learning will ultimately backfire. They may find it interesting at first but will likely get more depressed when they come to terms with this being fake and manipulating their emotions. It will also create false memories this can happen with the elderly which can make things really awkward when the real grand-kids do happen to stop by. "Mom, grandma's acting weird again!". This would be unfair to everyone involved.

If machine learning was instead creating very obviously fictional characters that offered authentic emotional, psychological and educational help to people of all ages that may be useful. The fictional characters should make it very clear they are fake in the event someone has a chemical imbalance and might start to think they are real. The characters should detect when a person starts to act is if the machine is a real person and respond accordingly. Educational lessons being taught by Loki? I would buy that.

I personally believe that all of these things and so much more will need to be worked out long before this logic is added to physical robots.

you can't cure loneliness with AI

you can't cure loneliness with Apple Vision Pro

you can't cure loneliness with anything else that relegates you to being alone in your apartment interacting only with digital technology

quite the opposite...we will just breed a new generation of super-psychos who cannot cope with other real people and will snap in increasingly destructive ways