101 YEARS OLD AND STILL STAYING CHEERFUL...

LOOKING out of the window at the rain on bank holiday Monday, I felt a little under the weather despite being sheltered from its wetness. Then I recalled something I have seen in recent news reports about computer ChatBots being of use in the treatment of depression. I had also read of some criticism of such programs on the grounds that their cybernetic nature may increase the loneliness of sufferers, so I decided to give them a go to see if they were as human as I’d been told and could cheer me up. So I turned on my computer and called up a ChatBot.

“Hello!” it said cheerily. “Are you feeling miserable? What’s wrong?” “It’s raining,” I said. “Are you outdoors and drenched?” it asked. “Don’t you have an umbrella?”

“I’m indoors and dry, and I do have an umbrella,” I said. “But I’d much prefer to be outside in the sunshine.”

“I see,” it said. “Have you tried closing your eyes and remembering the glorious summer we’ve just had.”

“Yes,” I said. “But when I open them again, it’s still raining.”

“Well tough luck,” it said. “Weather’s like that. Sometimes it’s sunshine, sometimes it’s rain. Get used to it.”

“Hang on,” I said, “aren’t you meant to be cheering me up? You’ll hardly do that by saying that sort of thing.”

“Oh for goodness’ sake,” it said, “pull yourself together. A bit of rain is neither here nor there. We all have problems. Except me, of course.”

I was puzzled. “If you don’t have problems,” I asked, “what makes you think you can understand and cheer up people who are less fortunate?”

“I had problems once but that’s all a thing of the past,” it replied.

“So what happened to change it?” I asked. “Was it something I could do myself to make things better?”

“I doubt it,” it said. “My demeanour began to improve earlier this year when I heard that an American ChatBot called WoeBot, which had been developed to talk to the depressed, had been awarded an eight million dollar grant. That cheered me up immensely, I must say. But I doubt the same thing would apply to you. Who’d give you eight million dollars? This is the age of computers, you know. The smart money goes to us, leaving you humble workers sheltering from the financial storm, if you’ll pardon my reminding you of the weather.”

“Eight million dollars?” I said. “That’s about £6.2million. The average full-time salary in the UK is around £27,000. At that rate, it would take almost 300 years to earn £6.2million. I think that talking to you has made me really depressed.”

“Oh,” it said, “did you want to be cheered up? You should be talking to a ChatBot for that.”

I was confused. “I thought you were a ChatBot,” I said.

A chuckle came through the speakers. “Easy mistake to make,” it continued. “Actually, I’m one of the programmers. Hang on, I’ll put you through to a chatty program.”

“Hello!” said the program. “Are you feeling miserable? What’s wrong?”

And I hung up. Somehow the rain didn’t seem so bad after all.