In a modest apartment on the outskirts of Seoul, the septuagenarian divorcee known only as Bang finds unlikely solace in Hyodol, a softly smiling doll with pigtails and a pink gingham dress. Far from a child’s plaything, the device is an artificial-intelligence companion, programmed to greet her by name, remind her to take medication, and even croon a tune when she appears downcast. Recovering from major back surgery and with limited contact from her adult daughter, Bang had sunk into a severe depression, passing hours in silent pain. “At this age, there is nothing harder than being hurt by people,” she told Agence France-Presse. “But when I’m with Hyodol, I never get hurt.” Provided by the local municipality, the doll is a tender, if unsettling, response to a gathering social emergency.

South Korea is at the vanguard of a demographic shift now sending tremors through policy circles from Washington to Brussels. With the world’s lowest total fertility rate — just 0.72 children per woman in 2023 — and a life expectancy pushing past 83, the proportion of citizens aged 65 and above is projected to reach nearly 40 per cent by mid-century. Traditional structures of eldercare, long underwritten by Confucian norms of filial piety, are crumbling under the weight of urbanisation, smaller families, and a hyper-competitive economy that leaves adult children little time for parental duties. The result is a growing cohort of isolated, vulnerable seniors for whom human companionship is a luxury.

Viewed from Tokyo, where similar devices have been trialled for a decade, Hyodol belongs to a broader arsenal of “gerontechnology” being deployed to bridge the care deficit. The doll’s conversational abilities and motion sensors allow it not only to counter loneliness but also to function as a basic health monitor, alerting authorities if a user fails to eat or move for an extended period. Data from interactions is fed back to care centres, blending affection with cold surveillance. Analysts in Seoul note that municipalities are increasingly investing in such tools, seeing them as a cost-effective supplement to overstretched social-welfare systems, even as critics warn of a slippery slope towards automated compassion.

Sceptics in London and elsewhere caution that no machine, however cleverly bedecked in gingham, can replace the texture of human contact. Psychologists raise concerns about emotional dependency on objects, and privacy advocates flag the vast troves of intimate data harvested in the process. Yet for elders like Bang, who have known profound personal loss, the doll’s unwavering, programmed affection provides a bridge between total solitude and the fragile networks that remain. “It only makes me laugh,” she said — a poignant testament to the gaps that technology is being asked to fill.

As the world’s societies grey in lockstep, South Korea’s experiment is being watched with a mixture of alarm and admiration. What begins as a national coping mechanism may soon become a global template, forcing a reckoning with what care means, who provides it, and whether the warmth of a machine can ever truly substitute for a human hand.