There’s been a lot of hand wringing over robots and artificial intelligence that reflects our darkest fears ranging from concerns that they will lull us into dependence and then destroy us (ala Terminator) to learning and exploiting our weaknesses. Yet avatars don’t seem to attract that kind of negative publicity.
A USC study showed that people are inclined to trust avatars more than humans because they don’t view them as judgemental and find it easier to develop a rapport with them. Maybe avatars remind us of a game guide and we’re just inclined to relax and spill our guts around them.
iDAvatars CEO and founder Norrie Daroga is familiar with the study. In a phone interview a day after he prepared a massive Thanksgiving feast for his adult children, he talked about what motivated him to start a company using avatars to focus on medical applications for seniors, veterans and children such as identifying and managing pain to conducting motor function tests for Parkinson’s disease.
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“We want to provide a way to help nurses and doctors between patient appointments. If avatars could answer questions patients have in those gaps, maybe it would be easier to intervene” earlier to help address patient questions and concerns. Although getting people to take their medication is critical, getting them to take it on time is just as important. They could also identify and steer patients away from behaviors that undermine their health.
Sophie, its flagship avatar platform, could just as easily be a physician or nurse practitioner. Anyone can get a glimpse of its avatar platform and how it functions by downloading its app Sophie Care. The avatar asks users a series of questions about things like their sleep, diet, and emotional state. It feels less like a questionnaire and something approaching a conversation, but responses are typed out.
It uses word analysis to better understand the emotional state of patients. Empathy figures into the company’s heading and reflects Daroga’s perspective on avatars’ role. For example, through an interaction with an asthmatic child, it could help determine what led to an asthma attack, whether it was triggered by stress such as parents arguing, a friend with a cat, or feather pillows.
In August iDAvatars won a contract with the Department of Veterans Affairs to develop avatars that will be integrated into the Veterans Health Administration Virtual Medical Center. The goal will be to use avatars to give veterans access to disease management and health content. The avatar capability will go live by May 2016.
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Daroga said even before IBM set up its Watson ecosystem, he sought to be an ecosystem partner because he understood its potential as a resource for big data applications. “At this point, there was just a single API and it was not very interactive. Now they are interactive and invite us to forums and demo products. It connects customers, technology vendors and startups, like themselves. “It’s been a very positive experience,” Daroga said.
He said he was inspired to start the company from the work of Skip Rizzo. The director of Medical Virtual Reality, a program backed by the U.S. Army at the Institute of Creative Technology, at University of Southern California, he has developed virtual reality applications to help veterans recover from post traumatic stress disorder, rehabilitation and other medical applications.
One of the most interesting projects Daroga highlighted is its work with Intel’s RealSense 3D camera platform. The program, at the proof-of-concept stage, has the avatar walk users through a medical test and demonstrates how to do it. Its initial application is for testing bradykinesia in Parkinson’s disease patients. A symptom associated with the neurological condition, bradykinesia reduces spontaneous movement such as fingertapping. To evaluate the disease’s progression, users are instructed to open and close one hand as many times as they can in a short period of time.
She can also answer questions about Parkinson’s. She knows if you put up correct hand. One day’s test results can be compared to the day before.
To date iDAvatars has raised $3.5 million in seed money, most of its from family offices. It expects to generate $1 million in revenue this year. Its staff spans the globe from the United States, Portugal, England, and India.
