In digital conversation, Riley is a young person who is trying to come out as genderqueer. When you message Riley, they’ll offer brief replies to open-ended questions, sprinkle ellipses throughout when saying something difficult, and type in lowercase, though they’ll capitalize a word or two for emphasis.
Riley’s humanness is impressive given that they’re a chatbot driven by artificial intelligence to accomplish a unique goal: simulate what it’s like to talk to a young person in crisis so that volunteer counselors can become skilled at interacting with them and practice asking about thoughts of suicide. Read more (Mashable)
A recent survey shows that in 2020, although people spent more time at home thanks to the Covid-19 pandemic, it took them an extra two or three hours to fall asleep, while the number of online searches for sleep problems increased 43%. In just six years, the national average sleep time dropped by two hours, from 8.8 hours in 2013 to 6.9 in 2019. And perhaps not surprisingly, those in their twenties and thirties sleep the latest — and least — among all age groups. Read more (RADII)
Amazon said it has started to offer its Amazon Care program to employees and other companies throughout Washington state and plans to make the program available throughout the U.S. this summer. Launched in 2019 at its Seattle headquarters, Amazon Care started by offering virtual primary-care services to Amazon employees in the city. The service also has an at-home care option, where medical professionals are dispatched to perform medical services such as blood draws or listening to a patient’s lungs. Read more (WSJ)
In March 2020, as the pandemic strengthened its grip around Europe and the world, I wondered how I would manage my weekly work commute from Stockholm to Oslo when my native country, Sweden, went against the grain and took the controversial decision to keep the country open, while Norway embarked on a full lockdown, in line with the approach taken by other Nordic countries.
Norway and Sweden are not just neighbours geographically, they share strong historical, cultural and economic ties, once even forming part of the same country before Norway gained independence from Sweden in 1905. Read more (CoronaTimes.com)
Fears of contagion lead us to become more conformist and less accepting of eccentricity. Our moral judgements become harsher and our sexual attitudes become more conservative Read more (BBC)
