PJH Studios

Tag: senior citizens

  • The practicalities of having a robot in your house

    A pilot program is taking place where senior citizens are receiving emotionally intelligent robots to help combat the loneliness epidemic.

    “We basically created an algorithm for emotional intelligence,” he said.

    “How does it work?” a woman in the group asked.

    Skuler explained that one of his first realizations was that, unlike most other A.I. models, the robot needed to be proactive. If it wanted to build deep, reciprocal, human relationships, it wasn’t enough to simply respond to commands. It had to anticipate a person’s needs and then act with agency.

    “But that opened up a whole new can of worms,” Skuler said. “How do you decide the right moment to engage someone without being annoying? How do you start talking in a way that makes them likely to respond?”

    Math. A lot more math.

  • Jewish seniors are offering to hide their Haitian caregivers

    The saying goes, “history doesn’t repeat, but it often rhymes.” In Florida, Jewish seniors are offering to hide their Haitian caregivers.

    About 500 seniors live at Sinai Residences in Boca Raton, Florida, including many Holocaust survivors. Recently, some of them asked if they could hide the building’s Haitian staff in their apartments.

    “That reminds me of Anne Frank,” Rachel Blumberg, president and CEO of the center, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “There’s a kindred bond between our residents being Jewish and seeing the place that the Haitians have gone through.”

    The seniors were aware of something that is only beginning to dawn on the rest of the country: that in addition to the aggressive immigration enforcement operations underway in Minnesota and elsewhere, the Trump administration has moved to cancel Temporary Protected Status for immigrants from a handful of countries once deemed too unsafe to return to.

  • Octogenarians in the club

    A Brussels program to fight loneliness among senior citizens.

    Among the revelers in crop tops, short skirts and high heels, one group stood out: gray-haired retirement-home residents, many in their 80s or 90s. The men wore suits with pocket handkerchiefs, and the women, in mascara and red lipstick, wore chunky necklaces and tops with sequins.

    “Look at the atmosphere,” said Guillaume Vanderweyen, 99, who was clubbing for the first time in 40 years. “Everyone is happy because we’re doing something different. That matters in life.”