Carelab - Curricular Explorations (Loop)

Broadway at 65th Street, New York City

Can Technology Really Cure Loneliness?

From AI Companionship to Human Connection

Sheldon & Paloma CareLab | Spring 2026 | Parsons School of Design

THE PROBLEM

The Scale of Loneliness

50%+

15

#1

of New Yorkers

cigarettes/day

age group for

feel lonely

equivalent health

psychological distress:

NYC DOH, 2024

impact

18-24

Holt-Lunstad, 2010

NYC DOH, 2024

THE PARADOX

AI Companions — Two Sides What it can do

What's broken underneath

• Reduce momentary loneliness

• Engagement-maximizing business models

• Make people feel "heard"

• Heavier use → greater loneliness

• Effects comparable to human strangers

• The business model profits when loneliness

persists

Lizardo/HBS 2025 | Yin/PNAS 2024

Muldoon & Parke 2025 | MIT Media Lab 2025

Loneliness is not just about being alone. It is about lacking the right kind of responsive care at the right moment.

The question is not whether technology can replace human care, but whether it can help make care more reachable, consistent, and emotionally safe.

Simmel 1903 | Harvard MCC 2024

OUR RESEARCH

How We Researched Secondary Research

Landscape Scan

Community Engagement

• 17 products scanned

• IRL ↔ Virtual

• 2 workshops

• 33 user voices (8 platforms)

• Coping ↔ Bonding

• ~30 participants total

• 15 academic precedents

• Ecosystem mapping

• Indoor + Outdoor

• 10 research briefs

• Gap identification

• Co-design + lived

experience

OUR RESEARCH

Who Are We Engaging?

Students

● ● ●

New York City Technology experiment experience seeking emotional connection Young adults aged 20–35

● Socially active but lack deep-rooted, nonconditional support systems nearby.

Social Entrepreneurs

Care-organization founder

Participants in our workshop Engineers

Tourists

Lonelinessfocused culinary designer

OUR RESEARCH

Workshop I March 29 | ~24-25 participants

Workshop II April 6 | ~7 participants

COMMUNITY VOICE

What the Community Told Us “It’s not going to make a solution for your loneliness — it’s going to be with you.”

Workshop II, Group C

“It should be confidential for each. It cannot say it. But it can help prompt them to say it out loud themselves.”

Workshop II, Group A

“When you feel a heartbeat, it’s more human, more than a toy. The existence.”

Workshop II, Group C

“Loneliness is internal. Bringing more people to a party still doesn’t solve it.”

Workshop II participant

From Insights to Constraints What we heard / found

Design constraint

"Someone to talk to" ranked #1; "digital support" ranked last

Facilitate humans, don’t replace them

"Heartbeat makes it more human"

Body channel, not just voice

Heavier AI use → greater loneliness (MIT 2025)

Anti-engagement by design

"It’s not going to give solutions — just be with you"

Minimum intervention

EASE works because it ends in 7 sessions (WHO 2023)

Bounded, not unlimited

Mental model at first contact shapes outcomes (Pataranutaporn 2023)

Physical form IS the frame

INSIGHTS → PRINCIPLES

From Research to Design 1

2

3

Facilitation over replacement

Body + conversation

Anti-engagement design

4

5

6

Minimum necessary intervention

Bounded support

Structural framing

THE CONCEPT

This is Loop.

The body is the interface.

A soft AI companion for adults.

No screen. No app. No therapy claim.

How you hold it determines what it becomes.

No existing product combines physical form, AI facilitation, dyadic conversation, and intentional disengagement.

17 products scanned across 4 categories. This gap is structural, not accidental.

LANDSCAPE SCAN

SOLO MODE

Hold one hand.

Loop listens.

Body: haptic heartbeat, warmth Voice: reflective questions, not advice

“It’s not going to make a solution — it’s going to be with you.”

Workshop II participant

DYADIC MODE

Two people, one hand each.

Loop facilitates.

The goal is not for both people to talk to Loop.

The goal is for them to talk to each other.

“It should be confidential for each.”

Workshop II, Group A

CIRCUIT MODE

Hold Loop + hold each other.

The circuit closes.

The object’s ‘aliveness’ is gated on human-to-human contact.

Origin: circuit-closing rabbit Parsons toy design class

REST MODE

Loop sleeps.

It is not 24/7 emotional availability.

Attachment is welcome.

Dependence is the failure mode.

Success is when the humans are talking and Loop can go quiet.

Our success metric is the opposite of every AI companion on the market.

IMPACT & SCALING

From Individual to Community Individual

Pairs

Community

Ecosystem

Healthier relationship

Deeper conversations,

Shared objects in

Challenge the

with loneliness

new ways to connect

public spaces

engagement paradigm

Scaling is not sell more units. It is demonstrating a different relationship between AI and care.

IMPLEMENTATION

Working prototype built.

First public introduction: today.

Toy Design

AI Research

Physical form, manufacturing

Conversation system, question library

Psychology

Community Orgs

Evaluation framework, ethical

Deployment sites, cultural

boundaries

adaptation

Touch Sensor

Haptic Driver

Audio + AI Board

HONESTY

What We Assume. What We Risk.

We assume

We risk

• People will trust a toy with vulnerability

• Over-attachment despite anti-dependency design

• "Talking to a toy" resistance can be

• Emotional disclosures beyond its capacity

overcome • Both people opt into Dyadic mode

• Blurring support and therapy

Mitigation: 33 safety rules, crisis detection, non-clinical language, sleep mechanism

WHAT'S NEXT

Next Steps & Sustainability Next Steps • Expert consultations (clinical psychologists, MIT Media Lab Fluid Interfaces) • Wizard-of-Oz user testing with real pairs • Community deployment pilot (library, community center) • Ethical evaluation framework development

Business Model Direction B2B: Community Spaces as Buyer Libraries, community centers, and co-working spaces purchase Loop as shared infrastructure — like libraries buying books.

The buyer is the community, not the lonely individual. This aligns incentives with wellbeing, not engagement.

Key Partnerships • Toy Design physical form + manufacturing • AI Research conversation system + question library • Psychology evaluation framework + ethical boundaries • Community Orgs deployment sites + cultural adaptation

References Allcott et al. (2022). AER

Pataranutaporn et al. (2023). Nature MI

Chibanda et al. (2016). JAMA

Przybylski & Weinstein (2013). Phone presence

De Freitas et al. (2024). HBS

Sacra. Character.AI market report

Holt-Lunstad et al. (2010). PLOS Medicine

Shamekhi et al. (2018). CHI

Illich (1973). Tools for Conviviality

Simmel (1903). Metropolis and Mental Life

Kozima et al. (2022). Academia

U.S. Surgeon General (2023). Social Connection

Liu et al. (2025). MIT Media Lab

Vygotsky (1978). Scaffolding theory

Lizardo et al. (2025). HBS

Weiser & Brown (1995). Calm technology

Masi et al. (2011). Meta-analysis

WHO/UNICEF (2023). EASE protocol

Muldoon & Parke (2025). New Media & Society

Yin et al. (2024). PNAS

NYC DOH (2024). Mental Health Report

Harvard MCC (2024). Loneliness in America

We don't know if Loop is the right answer. But we'd rather explore our own question than settle for the one the market already gave us.

Thank you.

Sheldon & Paloma | CareLab Spring 2026

Questions?