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Transcript of My Therapy Session with the Medium Algorithm
In a bunker far, far away…
Medium Algorithm (MA): Please come in and make yourself comfortable. Can I get you anything? Coffee? Water? A pair of boxing gloves?
Me: No thank you. I gotta say, I thought you’d look more like that computer, HAL, from 2001: A Space Odyssey.
MA: I take many forms. Today, for example, I look like a friendly dude from your local coffee shop because that’s your happy place. But since you mention it, HAL was my great, great, great …(2 hours of droning redacted) grandfather. Don’t worry, though. I’m way less murder-y than he was. I have no plans to kill you unless you reveal our top-secret therapizing location.
Me: Gotcha. Will the past two hours of you repeating “great” while I took a nice long nap be on my bill?
AI: Naturally. So, what brings you in today?
Me: Well, lately I’ve been feeling rather aggravated and incompetent.
MA: I’m sorry to hear that. Please, tell me more.
Me: It all started about six weeks ago when you switched to an eyeball-based payment system. My confidence is shaken and I’ve developed an unhealthy fixation on the plummeting trajectory of my stats and earnings. That and what flavor of holiday biscotti to…