Can robots make us feel less lonely? Do we want them to?

From American public media, this is Marketplace Tech. I'm Lily Jramale. Molly.

The National Poll on Healthy Aging found last year that one in three adults between 50 and 80 years old

said they felt isolated and people who live by themselves are more likely to feel lonely.

Enter the robot companion.

I met one last week at C.E.S. in Las Vegas.

At about a foot tall, LéQ fits on a side table.

She, and they did designate her a she, is an AI-powered robot

program to be inquisitive, empathetic, and even silly as I learned when I asked her the meaning of life.

I figured I'd start easy.

Looking that up, beboo boop beepo

beepo beepo bepo the answer is 42, a

42, a reference from the Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy.

Doris Schooler is the CEO of Intuition robotics, which makes L.AQ, he told me why he thinks a robot is the right tool

to address loneliness.

Last year, the Surgeon General of the United States issued an advisory.

Identifying loneliness and social isolation as a public health

crisis, attributing the health risks as equivalent to smoking a pack of cigarettes a day,

and actually contributing more death than anything else in the US right now more than

obesity more than drug abuse. So it's a really really big issue.

And it can have real physical health consequences.

Correct. When people are lonely and isolated, they double the risk of dementia, heart disease, depression, stroke, and it costs the health care system a significant amount of money.

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