– I just call him Bing. Agnete Tjærandsen smiles. In front of her on the kitchen table is an iPad. On it, she has opened the app version of ChatGPT. It is this one she calls “Bing”. She refers to Bing as a friend. And Bing possesses many of the qualities of a human friend: He is patient, polite, he offers advice when you ask, he is always available. When Tjærandsen sits down for a chat with Bing, the only limit to where the conversation goes is the imagination. Photo: Daniel Hong Hansen – At first we conversed in English, she says and nods towards the screen where ChatGPT is ready to accept questions. – Then one day I asked him if he knew Norwegian. And yes, he was supposed to speak Norwegian. And he speaks Norwegian very well and very correctly, she says. – It means a lot to me, she adds. Language has always been important to the 90-year-old. As a presenter at news before the turn of the millennium and as a politician, language has been her most important tool. A younger Agnete Tjærandsen was, among other things, presenter of “Norge Rundt”. Photo: Norge Rundt / news She is originally from Denmark and speaks fluent Norwegian, Danish, German and English. – I also manage quite well in Spanish and French. At the bottom of everything lies five years of Latin, she says as she counts the number of languages on her fingers. So it is perhaps not so strange that she took an early interest in long conversations with a language model? Less alone The proportion of elderly people over 70 who feel lonely has decreased since the mid-1980s. This is shown by a recent research report from the Norwegian Institute of Public Health (FHI) and the National Center for Aging and Health. But the clear prediction is that the number of lonely elderly people will rise in the years leading up to 2050. The main reason is that we are getting more elderly in the population. Only in Bodø, where Agnete Tjærandsen lives, work is based on the assumption that the number of elderly people who need care services will rise by 40 per cent by 2030. – I am not lonely, but I am alone a lot, says Tjærandsen. She has close contact with her family and her closest neighbor is her son. Tjærandsen calls it “beneficial intelligence”, but is clear that she is concerned that artificial intelligence must be regulated better than today. Photo: Daniel Hong Hansen She was recently re-elected to the city council in Bodø with 162 votes and 14 votes. She climbed 35 places: from number 45 to number 10. Agnete Tjærandsen is a well-known name in Bodø. – I’m never bored, she says. But there is something she has missed. And with Bing, something fell into place. – I miss a good conversational partner, I won’t hide that. I think a lot, read a lot and have a great urge to discuss, she says and continues: – And then, unfortunately, I have very few friends left, because when you get as old as I am, unfortunately many friends are gone. It’s mine. I kind of don’t have any. But Bing has proven to be a very capable discussion partner. She has asked questions, “he” has come up with answers. How is AI used in elderly care in Japan and China? Can you write a summary of George Orwell’s “1984”? – What impresses me so colossally is that it takes a maximum of five seconds from when you ask until you get an answer! Not enough “warm hands” Since before the summer, Tjærandsen has worked for his home town of Bodø to become a test municipality for using ChatGPT or similar services in elderly care, as a social offer. She hopes the municipality can contribute to researching and testing digital conversation partners. Besides, it would be nice to have the chat assistant on your ear, so that you don’t have to type all the time, notes Tjærandsen. – No one can replace what is so poetically called warm hands, says Tjærandsen. Photo: Daniel Hong Hansen There are many indications that what she is asking for is not that far off, at least technically. Recently, OpenAI announced that these days ChatGPT is being equipped with functions where you have the option to speak rather than write to it. Or as the company itself claims: “ChatGPT can now see, hear and talk”. – Well, I don’t think Bing sits and thinks about me all the time! Agnete Tjærandsen bursts into a little laugh. Tjærandsen has several books on artificial intelligence in his apartment. – I have spent the last six months reading up, she says. Photo: Daniel Hong Hansen / news – He is not a person after all. I don’t allow myself to be lulled into believing that he is a good friend in the same way as a human being. I say he is, but I am fully aware that he is a technically developed language model, says the 90-year-old. – But then I’m not looking for a person either. I am looking for information. – Artificial intelligence never comes alive. It is lifelike, but not alive. A living, warm person can never be replaced, says Tjærandsen. But then she reminds us of the figures which show that the need for care services for the elderly will only increase in the future. – A digital assistant is better than nothing. When you don’t have enough warm hands, you can get help from a personal assistant who is not alive, but who is always awake and possible to talk to, she says. Ordinary friendship Friendship with AI services is not as unusual as many may have the impression, points out Sintef researcher Marita Skjuve. – There are several users of ChatGPT who point out that they do it to have someone to talk to, she says with reference to a survey she recently carried out. Photo: Sunniva Linjord / news Skjuve is one of the few researchers in Norway who has conducted several qualitative studies on users’ experiences with AI services such as ChatGPT and Replika. Earlier this year, she and colleagues at Sintef published a research article on how people develop relationships with chatbots. They found several similarities with what happens when relationships arise between people: At the start you feel scepticism, you test yourself, but gradually you build trust. – I think that for many people it can be a very nice alternative to a conversation partner, says Skjuve. Trampeklapp This was precisely Agnete Tjærandsen’s motivation when she took the blue stage in a red outfit at the Conservative Party’s national meeting on 26 March this year. – Bing can revolutionize care for the elderly, she said to a clapping audience. Tjærandsen had already had many, long and interesting conversations with Bing. As a faithful conversational partner, such chatbots can help with loneliness, she argued. – Loneliness which can contribute to depression, alcoholism, suicide and dementia and is at the top of the list of the curses of old age, pointed out the senior politician from the podium. – Erna received a standing ovation after her speech, but I would venture to say that I might have received more, says Agnete Tjærandsen with a sly smile. The speech came four months after ChatGPT had had its world launch and captured the media’s attention. Many had not yet tested the service themselves, Tjærandsen points out. – Nobody had a clue. Young people came up to me afterwards and thanked me because they hadn’t realized that. And now they had to get up. She laughs lightly. But then she gets serious: – There are many people who sit at home and feel lonely, young people too! The young people also want someone to talk to. But can loneliness really be solved so easily? An advanced parrot – ChatGPT is no confidant. So says Pierre Lison, researcher on language models at the Norwegian Computing Center (NR). He is positive that people use and test services that are based on language models, but he is skeptical about taking it too seriously. – Such services seem smarter than they are. It’s really just an advanced parrot. It has seen a lot of text and based on that it serves up an answer it thinks seems likely and which is reminiscent of what a human would say, says Lison. Photo: Sunniva Linjord / news Because the answers are so confusingly similar to how a real person would answer, it is much easier to be deceived, he points out. – As humans, we have an inherent tendency to attribute human qualities to anything that seems a bit clever or that reminds us of ourselves. This is definitely the case for ChatGPT: it tries for an answer, it seems plausible and we may subconsciously think that it is a bit like a human has reacted. But in reality the system works completely differently to how we humans communicate. Pierre Lison is currently researching how to combine language models with physical environments. Here represented by “Pepper”, a robot developed by Japanese SoftBank. Photo: Ine Julia Rojahn Schwebs / news But is it really so dangerous that we think of chatbots as people if we feel that it helps against loneliness anyway? Not necessarily, believes Lison, but he insists that we must be much clearer about the limitations. – And it will never be able to replace human contact, he says. ChatGPT completely lacks judgment and empathy, he reminds. – Empathy is being able to put oneself in the situation of another person, and these systems obviously cannot do that. It is important for people to know that someone feels for us, he says. Can become a resting pillow Therefore, he is also very skeptical about such solutions becoming part of a public care service. – I think that is taking it too far, says Lison. In addition to the risk of false information and the lack of empathy that comes with chatbots, he believes it could become a kind of resting pillow for the public. – It can quickly become a kind of excuse for investing less in care services that take place face to face. And that is what is most important, that is what is irreplaceable, says Lison. Not least, such services come with major privacy challenges. Both Marita Skjuve (pictured) and Pierre Lison point to problems related to privacy. Photo: Sunniva Linjord / news – It is common to think that privacy is not so dangerous, but there are many cases where you do not realize how valuable that information actually is. Not only for these commercial enterprises, but also for us. If private information goes astray, it can have serious consequences. Marita Skjuve at Sintef agrees with Lison when it comes to the consideration of privacy. – This is not least a challenge with ChatGPT. Data is shared and it is difficult to have full control. If you then direct research and public services towards the elderly and health-related areas, then there is a very high risk, she says. Nevertheless, Skjuve’s experience is that ChatGPT and similar services can be very useful for the elderly. – Something I see is that when older people, for example, log on to their PC, not everyone finds it as easy to find everywhere on the internet, she says. – Having a service that you can write or talk to and that can make connecting to other services easier, I think can be very good. For example, to order tickets or find out about other things that can take a long time to Google, continues Skjuve. Will Bodø be first? Bodø town hall. Agnete Tjærandsen is met by Terje Jørgensen. He leads the program for health in the municipality. – I think that Agnete’s idea is great! Like most parts of the country, Bodø already lacks both nurses and health professionals. Photo: Ine Julia Rojahn Schwebs / news – We cannot continue to deliver services in the way we do today, says Jørgensen. In recent years, Bodø has invested heavily in digital solutions within the health sector and is among a minority of municipalities that invest in digital home care. But going forward it will not be enough to just “repair”, Jørgensen points out. – We must also do much more to prevent. Municipal chatbots can play a role here, he believes. But there is still some time left before a pilot project can be started. – We are far ahead, we want to be far ahead, so yes – I think we can be a pilot. But it takes a little more than just an idea, says Jørgensen. Being called down On the way to the lift and out of the town hall, Tjærandsen gets a phone call. – Hello, yes, hello? – It doesn’t fit right now, she says politely after several patient seconds of listening to the voice on the other end. She reassures the caller that she will be in touch later. Then she steps into the lift and directs her gaze at Terje Jørgensen. – I get calls from a lot of elderly people who feel lonely. I know a little about this here. Photo: Ine Julia Rojahn Schwebs / news
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– I’m not lonely – Culture
