The answer to ending loneliness may be A.I. and if we can wrap information within a personality with a sense of humour, that may be the perfect companion.  In 2001, if you were on AOL and wanted to chat with one of the buddies on your list, there was always someone there waiting for you, even if no human wanted to talk. You didn't need to look for SmarterChild. It was already in your Buddy List waiting for you to begin chatting with it. SmarterChild was online from 2000 to 2006 and was the first commercial chatbot. It was witty, it knew stuff and it quickly became the most popular bot in history, pre-Siri, pre-Alexa. Five percent of all instant messaging traffic at that time--hundreds of millions of messages a day--went through the bot named SmarterChild. And then SmarterChild was gone. Artificial Intelligence is said to be as important in the 21st century as electricity and steam power in earlier centuries. Could we use A.I. to solve loneliness? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Bot Buddies: Is A.I. The Perfect Companion?

A life of solitude was imposed on millions of us during the pandemic due to the coronavirus. Being alone is a life chosen deliberately by some; others are just alone, not by choice. We can end up unexpectedly alone and for many, the twists and turns of life, brought us to where we are. Experts and researchers around the world share their insights about what we know about loneliness, we find meaning of it from songs, art, books, films, history and pop culture. We isolate the lessons of loneliness from people like you and people like me who have unique stories to tell and to share. Everyone feels lonely at times. But let’s begin to explore why. My name is Peg Fong, I’m a journalist and an educator who has been fascinated by what loneliness means. We’re not here to solve loneliness. But to add one voice to another so that we are alone together. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Hello podcast listeners!
I'm Peg Fong, writer and creator of "Alone Together." We are continuing our journey exploring loneliness...in Spanish: "Juntos en soledad." Listen to this new adaptation presented by business professor and producer Guillermo Serrano (@guilloserrano).
"Juntos en soledad" – listen and subscribe on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or your favourite podcast app. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Announcement: The Podcast is Now Available in Spanish

We are living in lonely times, but the human conditions make us wonder, are we alone in our loneliness?  And that answer is clear. 
Somewhere, someone else is taking off for the unknown, moving to small towns or hitting the road to start a new life. We can understand loneliness when we peer up into the sky or see celebrities doing ordinary things, when we laugh at comedians and still feel sad because we recognize their loneliness. 
And we may not be hermit crabs or whales in the ocean or rare birds or lone wolves, but the way animals behave tells us something about loneliness and isolation. There’s solace in discovering we all need a shell and we are allowed to grow out of that shell, or we need to be apart from others like lone wolves. 
We can see it in clouds or in comics, read it in words and feel loneliness in our silence, in remembering and in those times when we can’t sleep or want to talk to someone else sitting on a bench.
Those are the lessons in loneliness that come from understanding the way we see ourselves and the world around us as we wrap up with the final episode of this season.    
 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Looking Back: The Lessons of Loneliness

Benches are places in public spaces where people can sit by themselves. They are special because they’re not just a place to sit,  they’re spots available to anyone and that availability turns benches into opportunities for connections.
Benches are bridges between those eager to chat, and those wanting to just listen. 
When we sit on a bench, we’re indicating we’re part of a world that maybe we feel too lonely or afraid to fully participate in. Benches give us an opportunity to be engaged in our surroundings whether it's observing from the side or opening up a chance for conversation. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Park Your Loneliness: Benches Are Made For Two

The first multiple blind dates in the world are believed to have taken place in April 1827. The story goes that Thomas Swain, a 52 year old bachelor, had vowed to take the first woman to step ashore the world’s most remote island. Her name was Sarah Jacobs, a widow, and Thomas Swain took her hand as soon as she put her foot on the island. The four other women who had arrived with Sarah Jacobs married the four other bachelors on the island. 
From those beginnings, the island population at Tristan da Cunha grew exponentially.  By 1832, just five years after the five women arrived, Tristan had a population of 34--22 of them children.  The solitary outpost which had been a British garrison had become a community.
Today, it is still the most isolated island in the world where people live and Tristan da Cunha is located in the middle of the ocean between two continents.  The residents who live there, all 247 of them, understand a type of loneliness like no one else. But their isolation has, for hundreds of years, been a place that others have learned from: how to survive away from anyone else. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

No Restaurants, Lawyers or... Loneliness: Life on the Remotest Island

We Don’t Talk About Bruno, the number 1 hit song, written by Lin-Manual Miranda for the Disney movie Encanto, is all about a member of the Madrigal family who no one talks about, Bruno. 
Encanto is a movie about family, but it’s also about trauma and how families connect, separate and become estranged.  For a Disney movie, there are some very heavy themes, including war and violence and ruptures within what family members expect from each other and what they can’t accept. 
We all have been told and taught that family bonds are unbreakable but for many, family is their pain, and these relationships are broken.  There’s a certain type of loneliness that comes from being estranged from family, in choosing to depart from the ties that are part of our genetics and our lineage.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Bot Buddies: Is A.I. The Perfect Companion?

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