High School Inventors Create Virtual Friend to Help With Loneliness

For skilled nursing and senior living residents, loneliness typically is a pressing concern, worsened by living away from loved ones or by dementia. Technology can be a powerful tool to combat this issue, as two high school inventors have shown by creating a new virtual friend to keep older adults company and loneliness at bay. Rishi Ambavanekar and Rohan Kulkarni, high school juniors from Vista Del Lago High School in Folsom, CA, developed Geri, an app using ChatGPT’s artificial intelligence, to provide lonely individuals with companionship. Geri is designed specifically for people living with Alzheimer’s disease or social isolation.