A robot interviewed by policymakers is not something you expect to see, well, ever, but that’s exactly what happened recently in the UK House of Commons.

According to reports, members of the House of Commons’ education select committee sat down with Pepper, an AI-drive humanoid robot currently based at Middlesex University that works with final year students on robotics, psychology, biomedicine and education.

The specific topic was how AI and robotics can be used to help care for older populations, and an  “identical robot with different programming is also part of a three-year international research project called Caresses, which is developing the world’s first culturally aware robots aimed at assisting with care for older people.”

According to Pepper, the service could cut costs for caring for older people, as well as helping with issues such as loneliness.

“Assistive intelligent robots for older people could relieve pressure on hospitals and care homes as well as improve the care delivery at home and promote independent living for elderly people,” Pepper said.

In a statement, SoftBank Robotics, the firm behind Pepper, said, “Pepper is well equipped with features and a high level interface for communicating with those around him. Pepper analyses expressions and voice tones using the latest advances in voice recognition.”

In addition to Pepper’s presentation, the article pointed to a project launched by Orbita, a firm specializing in voice and chatbot applications in healthcare, who recently teamed up with Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital to explore how voice-enabled and conversational artificial intelligence (AI) can improve patient care.

The organizations will tap Orbita’s cloud-based platform, Orbita Voice, to collaborate on developing “digital health care applications that use voice assistants, chatbots, and other conversational user interfaces to improve patient engagement, remote care, clinical efficiency and business processes.”