SKT Uses AI 'Emotional Dictionary' to Provide Psychological Counseling for Elderly Living Alone

At the Haengbok Connect ICT Management Center located in Seongsu-dong, Seongdong-gu, Seoul, Jin Young-ha, a psychological counselor (standing), and on-site care managers are having a meeting. Photo by SKT

[Asia Economy Reporter Oh Su-yeon] SK Telecom announced on the 30th that its 'Artificial Intelligence (AI) Care' service, operated for socially vulnerable groups such as elderly people living alone, has conducted approximately 500 psychological counseling sessions for elderly people living alone over the past two years.

The ‘AI Care’ psychological counseling service selects elderly individuals who need psychological counseling based on the repeated occurrence of negative words in their speech through AI speakers.

For example, when an elderly person says, “I feel very depressed today” or “People are making things very difficult for me; can you help me?”, the AI focuses on expressions that indicate the elderly person's anxious emotions such as ‘depressed,’ ‘struggling,’ ‘lonely,’ and ‘empty.’

SKT operates an ‘AI Emotional Dictionary’ to determine words that indicate the emotions of the elderly, and has recently expanded the number of emotional category words to 2,400, continuously upgrading it. Currently, the ‘AI Emotional Dictionary’ contains 482 keywords indicating depression, 1,008 words expressing loneliness, and 170 and 742 words related to well-being and happiness, respectively.

When an elderly person utters words registered in the AI as indicating anxious emotions, the AI classifies them into four categories: ‘depression,’ ‘loneliness,’ ‘well-being,’ and ‘happiness,’ and tracks the speech weekly to select counseling candidates.

When the AI-collected negative speech data of the elderly is delivered to Happiness Connect’s psychological counselors, the counselors select candidates for counseling based on this data. Candidates include those with three or more negative utterances within a week or fewer than three if the content is concerning.

After Happiness Connect initially selects psychological counseling candidates, they also refer to initial evaluations (sleep, meals, frequency of contact with others, presence of family, medical history, etc.) received from care managers or visiting nurses working in the field with elderly people living alone, and proceed with counseling with the elderly person's consent.

Over the past two years, SKT has conducted a total of about 500 counseling sessions, with 126 elderly people receiving counseling, averaging four sessions per person.

The ‘AI Care’ psychological counseling service is provided at a total of 18 locations, including nine local governments such as five districts in Seoul, six dementia safety centers and public health centers, and three related welfare institutions.

Additionally, 59 of the total counseling cases have been linked to local governments to help expand elderly psychological counseling into practical care through administrative channels.

SKT and Happiness Connect plan to increase the proportion of face-to-face counseling from the current phone counseling once the COVID-19 situation stabilizes, and to start group counseling for elderly people living alone.

Lee Junho, SKT’s ESG Promotion Manager, said, “Psychological counseling is essential for vulnerable groups such as elderly people living alone, but the threshold is actually too high,” and added, “We plan to enhance AI technology and services to actively find and expand counseling for elderly people who need it.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.