Cyborgs welcome

Robot holding up a solar panel

Load shedded: A term used jokingly in South Africa to refer to any device that is currently not working.
Note: this is not a real definition from a real dictionary.

Apps and ads

Wordle is a web-based word game, owned and published by The New York Times. At first I avoided it. Then I only played the official online game. That lasted about 3 days until I decided that one Wordle a day is not enough.

So now I have a Wordle game on my phone. It doesn’t limit me to the official Wordle word of the day. I get a 6-letter word of the day, and as many 5-letter words as I want to play. My version of time travel: I’ve gone back in the calendar to play the daily options for the past 5 months.

I installed the free version of the app. The disadvantage is the number of ads. The advantage is that the ads annoy me enough to make me close the app. Like a built-in addiction control.

I only look for an app when I want something specific. So the ads gave me some insight into the types of apps that are available. Most of the ads were predictable – games, shopping. A few were for apps that seem socially incorrect, if not morally ambiguous.

One ad that surprised me was for an chatbot-type therapist. As I’ve written before, I find chatbots on websites unhelpful. So how could a chatbot be a good therapist?

Social robots

But it seems there is a place for AI in therapy. I was intrigued by a recent ITWeb article on social robots.

According to the article, psychologists use social robots for some types of therapy. Milo is an example. It is a facially-expressive humanoid robot that helps autistic students to improve their social behaviour. Milo is more consistent and patient than a human would be.

It’s a fascinating concept. In simple terms: the robot helps people learn to interact with other people.

Let the robots take over

If robots can help people talk to people, then they can help people govern people. And manage resources, like electricity.

We are all so tired of load-shedding. LISD – load-shedding induced stress disorder – might become a real thing. (No, it isn’t yet: I just made up that acronym from a comment I read.)

If robots are going to take over the world, I hope they start with Eskom. And soon. But they might need to be solar-powered.

What do you think? Please share your thoughts.

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