Introducing the COMPANIONS project : Intelligent , persistent , personalised multimodal interfaces to the internet

The paper introduces the COMPANIONS project, a 4 year, EU funded Framework Programme 6 project involving a consortium of 16 partners across 8 countries. It's aim is to develop a personalised conversational interface, one that knows and understands its owner, and can act as an alternative access point to resources on the Internet, all the while nuturing an emotional involvement from it's owner/user to invoke the shift from interaction to relationship. On a technical level it intends to push the state of the art in machine based natural language understanding, knowledge structures, speech recognition and text to speech. With these technical developments will come advanced interaction design elements, some of which were initiated on the SHEFC funded project, UTOPIA (Usable Technology for Older People: Inclusive & Appropriate), examining the potential for developing artificial companions for older people. The UTOPIA view of companionship and the Elderly Companionship is a concept that is familiar to all, yet defies simple explanation. Psychology considers it a central need, yet balks at a concise definition of what constitutes a companion beyond " a relationship…with mutual caring and trust " [Gleitman, 2000, p467]. What is clear, is the importance of companions to emotional well being. Indeed the loss of companions is considered a primary cause of depression among older people [Sluzki, 2000]. It is therefore important to consider that the loss of human companions is a natural consequence of growing old. There is a diminishing of the supportive ties of family members, of friends and of other relationships from previous, concurrent, and following generations through death or distancing by migration or relocation. Furthermore, social roles and ties are lost through retirement and any parental function is reduced as children grow up and become independent. This substantial erosion of social networks inevitably leads to the loss of companions and is often accompanied by an experience of emotional impoverishment, not infrequently experienced by the elderly as a pervasive depression " without a reason " [Gory and Fitzpatrick, 1992]. With consideration of this natural decline in human companionship, the potential value of developing artificial companionship become distinctly apparent. On a simple level, older people have relationships with companions, be they pets, friends or care assistants. But what constitutes the difference between an interaction and a relationship? To form a relationship, the user needs to care about the interaction, to invest emotion in it. The artificial companions evoke the emotional …