Singlish-savvy AI program can check in on seniors, intercept scam calls

Meralion can understand at least 8 regional languages, and also handle non-verbal cues

- Osmond Chia

Artificial intelligence agents trained to speak in English, local mother tongue languages, and even Singlish, may soon be deployed to call elderly patients or seniors to check in on how they are doing, or at anti-scam centres to intercept suspicious calls.

"I've been told (the program) can also handle non-verbal cues such as the speaker's volume, emotion and tone," said Digital Development and Information Minister Josephine Teo, announcing the latest update to the AI model on May 28 at the Asia Tech x Singapore conference held at Capella Singapore.

Called Meralion (short for Multimodal Empathetic Reasoning and Learning in One Network), the AI model can understand at least eight regional languages such as English, Mandarin, Tamil, Malay, Thai and Singlish.

Meralion, which is developed by the A*Star Institute for Infocomm Research, is available for the public to install for free to adapt for their use. Talks are also under way with a social service agency to deploy the chatbot.

For instance, Meralion can help social workers ring seniors to remind them to take their medication. The AI program, which works autonomously, can also check in on seniors' well-being, analysing their tone and dialogue for signs of sadness or anger that might require closer attention from human staff.