Awardee Organization(s): Pennsylvania State University
Principal Investigator(s): Rui Zhang, PhD | Marie Boltz, PhD, GNP-BC
Official Project Title: Task-Oriented Multimodal Conversational AI for Assisting Seniors with Daily Tasks
AITC Partner: PennAITech
Website(s):
https://www.eecs.psu.edu/
https://ryanzhumich.github.io/
With a global population of over 1 billion people aged 60 and above, there is a rapidly increasing need for innovative age tech solutions to improve the quality of life of older adults. Conversational assistants, powered by cutting-edge technologies in Artificial Intelligence (AI), Natural Language Processing (NLP), and Large Language Models (LLM), are permeating into home care, assisted living, and nursing facilities for smart elderly care. One type of conversational assistant is task- oriented, which can significantly enhance the life experience for senior people by helping them with real-world complex daily tasks. A task-oriented virtual assistant facilitates daily tasks spanning diverse scenarios such as calling for help in response to emergencies, helping with online grocery shopping, recommending cooking recipes, managing smart home devices, and providing financial education and decision-making. It greatly promotes the life quality of older adults by improving their well-being, efficiency, safety, and independence. In this proposal, we design, develop, and deploy a task-oriented multimodal conversational assistant to help older adults with daily tasks. The innovation of this proposal lies in the fact that we will employ a human-centered participatory approach by emphasizing collaboration between designers and end-users through interviewing, prototyping, and testing to address their unique needs and preferences to improve their daily lives.
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