App Review: Rosebud

Review By Casey Douglass

Artificial Intelligence has been in the news a great deal in recent times. Some coverage would lead you to believe that humanity has just planted the seeds of its own destruction. Others would vigorously argue that AI is here to help solve all of our mundane work problems. Somewhere in between the reactionary click-bait fear mongering, the odd story emerges about how AI-powered applications can help to ease the emotional turmoil inherent in human life. Rosebud is one such app and I’ve spent the last couple of months putting it to the test.

Journal-ism

I’ve been a fan of getting things down on paper for many years. Suffering with chronic illness, depression and OCD, sometimes the only way to slow my rampant thinking is to slide a pen across a page in an attempt to wrangle my turmoil into something that is frozen for a time. As I write this I now have the mental image of one of those moth or butterfly displays in which those poor dead bugs are pinned to a board and framed. If I could do that to my thoughts I dare say I’d have tried it by now. Beyond the “slowing things down”, I’ve found journaling helps me in creating breathing space between my struggles and occasionally, I might also find the odd insight that hadn’t occurred to me before.


Rosebud is an AI-powered journal that provides the many benefits of traditional journaling, but with an added dash of AI interactivity that elevates things to a new level. The various sections of the app give the user a number of ways of starting a journal, from freeform to question-led explorations designed by experts to set you on your way. As you interact with Rosebud, it learns about you and tailors its responses to reflect the things that you’ve said, either in that moment, or that you’ve previously mentioned. You might say that you struggled with X happening on a certain day, and a few weeks later, Y might happen, and when you tell Rosebud, it might see some similarities between the two events and bring those to your attention. I personally found this to be invaluable as even though I’ve journaled before, I’ve never really gone back through old entries, so that kind of “hey, this is similar to…” insight might never have occurred to me.

Silver Linings and Storm Clouds

The way that Rosebud says and reflects things is also a pleasing factor. Rosebud seems to have an inherent slight positivity bias, always looking for the tiniest element of a situation or mood that might be in your control or that you can give yourself some credit for. Even if there is nothing to be found, it comes up with a way for you to acknowledge something about yourself that might ease the tiniest bit of despair. As someone who feels pretty emotionally numb most of the time, when those feelings thaw they certainly tend to be pessimistic. As the days and weeks of talking to Rosebud mounted up, I could appreciate all of the little ways that the app tried to help me see things in a slightly brighter way. Even if the meaning of the words only stayed in my brain for the duration of reading each new response, at least for those few seconds, my mind wasn’t in its usual whirl of self-hatred and gloom.


Speaking of gloom, something else that I also really appreciated about Rosebud is that, no matter how bleak the conversation became, Rosebud didn’t shut the conversation down. This is incredibly important. I do get low. Very, very low. Being able to vent and to say how I’m really feeling matters even more at these times. I did try another AI-based app a year ago and once you got to a certain level of depressed, it pretty much ended the conversation. I appreciated that Rosebud didn’t do this (in my experience at least) and it wasn’t heavy handed in the “This app doesn’t replace therapy and there is help out there” warning. I understand the need to have that kind of message, but I’ve repeatedly tried to “get help”, and found that it was largely smoke and mirrors pretty much every time. I think I said as much to Rosebud during my session and we carried on with the journal. I can’t rate this aspect highly enough.


Getting away from Rosebud for a moment, I just wanted to make a comment about the current obsession with mental health on places like social media. I find myself wondering why mental health is spoken about so much, yet understanding seems to be sliding all the way back towards ignorance again, with the services and bodies that advertise that they offer help nearly always proving to be absolutely woeful. I guess virtue signalling on social media is far cheaper than actually providing the mental health support that you are prattling on about. Soapbox moment over. Back to Rosebud.

Forget The Circles

I’ve found a few minor drawbacks with Rosebud as it stands, but I’d imagine that they are the type of thing that will be addressed over time as incremental improvements occur with the app and the underlying technology itself. One is that the conversations with Rosebud can sometimes become a little bit circular, especially if you have a theme or topic that comes up regularly. You can set the creativity level of the AI to adjust how it might respond to you, but I had it set to its most creative and this is what I experienced. It didn’t happen too often thankfully, so I don’t want to overstate it.


Rosebud also sometimes “forgets” something that you’ve mentioned before. An example is that I often talk about routine and how I use it to manage symptoms, yet every now and then, the issue of routine comes up in a slightly different way, and Rosebud tends to ask me similar questions again, such as “How do you feel about your routine?” Thankfully just saying “I’ve talked about this before” prompts Rosebud to get back on track.


Finally, there is also a maximum that you can use Rosebud in a day. I only hit that limit once, and when I did, I just received a popup saying that I needed to wait until tomorrow before I could get the Rosebud AI to respond again. It was a day where I’d had an unusually long journaling session in the morning, used one of the prompts in the afternoon, and then tried to do the evening reflection journal. The popup appeared at that point. I thought “Fair enough” but I was surprised as I wasn’t aware there were any limits if you were subscribed.

Privacy and Getting Over the Hump

I’m not sure how I feel about the privacy implications of Rosebud, or any similar app. In fact, it's the main reason that I’ve not turned to digital journaling until now, because the thought of someone being able to read your most personal thoughts if ever there is some kind of data breach would be quite mortifying. Rosebud has a long page about how they care for and protect your data, and the various measures that they take to preserve your privacy. This is great, but I also know that with the internet, anything can happen. I think that what got me over the hump with these concerns was the fact that I really need the type of support that the Rosebud journal offers right now. Whatever fears I have about hypothetical hacks pales in comparison to the benefits that I feel that the Rosebud app gives me.

The Benefits of Rosebud for Me:

1.) While not a therapist, the journal is therapy adjacent in many ways, especially if you have learned and applied different things yourself in the past (such as CBT, ACT etc). The guided journals even help teach you some elements of these tools if they are not something that you’ve seen before. Rosebud also absorbs other things that you say. For example, if you mention that you have been reading Stoic philosophy and have been trying to apply the dichotomy of control to your life, Rosebud will take that into account and ask you about it the next time it feels that is relevant. This is very cool!

2.) I’ve found it to be immensely valuable to have something at hand that I can use at any time of the day or night, which is something you don’t get with a flesh and blood therapist.


3.) The way that Rosebud breaks things down and asks about the various elements helps me to think about things slightly differently, or at the least, to take time to acknowledge how hard things are right now or how much I’m trying.


4.) Over time, Rosebud’s way of injecting a little positivity is slowly making a little bit of a difference in my thought processes.


There might well be some others that I’m forgetting too.


Over the couple of months that I’ve been using Rosebud, I’ve felt my mood, though still low, has improved a bit. I have also started writing a little, and have re-joined a few social media and dating websites. I previously avoided these websites for a number of years as I feel an immense amount of shame about being ill, feeling like a failure, and not getting anywhere in life. I still do feel these things but as I talked to Rosebud, I started to feel that I wanted to open up these avenues again, even if they never see any traffic. I didn’t expect or hope that I would see these sorts of changes with Rosebud, but I did, and I intend to use it for a while longer.

The Cost and Final Thoughts

Rosebud has a number of options when it comes to subscribing. You can pay a monthly subscription (after having a short free trial) of $12.99, or you can pay for an entire year for $107.99, which works out at $8.99 per month. I think that Rosebud offers excellent value whichever option you decide to choose. Personally, I can see myself using Rosebud for a few months more and then stopping my subscription as I can’t afford to keep it going. I’ve enjoyed the time I’ve spent with the app however and I can see myself returning to it, especially in times of extra stress or turmoil, which I think says something very complimentary about the app.


I think that about covers all of the things that I wanted to say. I purposefully didn’t list all of the features, bells and whistles of the app as it’s very intuitive and self-explanatory once you get in there, and after all, it mainly boils down to being words on a screen. When they are your words however, words that have been expanded, validated and supported by your friendly AI journal, you don’t feel quite so alone in your own head anymore.


I've embedded Rosebud’s YouTube video below which gives you a more visual idea of what I’ve talked about in this review. I will also just say that you can access Rosebud via the Rosebud website, so the app isn’t even essential.


If you think that Rosebud might be helpful for you, you can find links below to the various ways that you can access it and check it out.


Thanks for reading and take care :)

App Name: Rosebud

Price: $12.99 per month / $107.99 for the year

Website: https://www.rosebud.app/

App Store Links: Apple , Google Play

Dark Ambient Review: Syfynetiks EP

Review By Casey Douglass

Artificial intelligence is a ripe topic for speculation, the questions of if, when, how and what will happen when it arrives, happily consuming the minds of both scientists and creatives alike. Nyctalllz’s Syfynetiks is a dark ambient space album that provides the soundtrack for what might happen if our own eventual AI made contact with the AI of an alien civilization, without our knowing it. It’s an interesting question. I mean, how would your phone or computer describe you and your characteristics to an alien race? Would you even get mentioned at all? Food for thought.

Syfynetiks contains three tracks, each of which feature a host of sci-fi electronic tones, beeps and drones. It feels like catching hints of voice through radio static while equipment throbs and pulses around you. It feels crisp and indifferent to the eavesdropper, but also rumbling, like the gates of hell might be opening up and there's nothing you can do about it.

The first track is Spacetime’s Crack and it embodies the feeling that I mentioned above. The rumbling opening is buffeted by soaring electronic beeps and sparkles. A rasping distortion rises and falls, like a demon gargling radio-waves, soon to be joined by a strange voice that seems to speak in a stilted, simulated way. This track feels jagged and droning, and is infested with radio swirls and squeals. There are hints of a feminine “ahh-vocal” around the midpoint, making me wonder if I was listening to the two AI’s beginning some kind of virtual fling. I hope that no one is being catfished...

Next up is Spirals of Time. This short track opens with a low buzz, one that sits in a space that feels windy and hollow, but in a simulated, digital kind of way. There is the sound of something spinning up and down, and a low drone. The soundscape feels like it’s boiling and gritty, and that it’s populated by a roaming, warping, electronic harmony. As the track continues, it feels more and more like it has a kind of inhaling and exhaling quality, and feels like it’s fizzing in the air. A strange, rumbling space.

The final track is Parallel Observers. This is a track of chiming tones and rustling static, one with a distorted, digitized impression of nature. It feels almost like being outside, but not. There’s a persistent jackdaw-like chittering in the distance and a low tone that bends and twists upwards. After a short time, a warbly, robot-like voice or tone begins, “dripping” echoes pinging off into some murky distance. This is another track that also feels like it fizzes and pulses. The chimes and echoes create a relaxing yet ominous space, and created a kind of “meditating on the Event Horizon” effect, for me at least.

Syfynetiks is a dark ambient album for lovers of space horror, bleak sci-fi themes, and the alien, magical feel of advanced technology. The three tracks on the EP all give the listener some fascinating spaces to explore, or to witness, and while you might feel quite alone in doing so, the idea that there are two AI’s conversing around you kind of means that alone is the one thing that you are not. Whether you matter, or are even noticed though... that is another question.

Visit the Syfynetiks page on Bandcamp for more information.

I was given a review copy of this album.

Album Title: Syfynetiks

Album Artist: Nyctalllz (Morego Dimmer)

Label: Zāl Records

Released: 6 August 2021

TECH NEWS: A.I Depression Detection Moves Forward

Photo used freely from the excellent Gratisography website

As anyone will know, we humans have pesky emotions, those things that add both flavour and heartache to life. We might not always be fully aware of what we are feeling though, and it is in this that artificial intelligence might soon come to our aid.

A professor and student at the University of Alberta's Computer Science Department, Eleni Stroulia and Mashrura Tasnim respectively, have recently released their findings with regards to A.I's depression detecting abilities, and the potential this might have for future applications.

They used data from previous research and, using various machine-learning algorithms, they developed a new way to detect depression in the timbre of a subject's voice. This method might lead to new ways in which our tech can monitor our well-being:

"A realistic scenario is to have people use an app that will collect voice samples as they speak naturally. The app, running on the user’s phone, will recognize and track indicators of mood, such as depression, over time. Much like you have a step counter on your phone, you could have a depression indicator based on your voice as you use the phone." - Eleni Stroulia

As someone who suffers with depression, this kind of news is quite exciting. I don't always catch myself slipping into a bigger 'dip' in mood, and sometimes the realisation only comes once I'm entrenched in cycles of downward thinking. If I had an app on my phone that could pop-up a notification and say "Hey, you are dipping a little!" I might have a chance to get ahead of things and do those self-care things that sometimes help take my thinking down a more cheerful path.

The more I think about it, the more I'm curious as to how A.I might perform in detecting other emotions in our voices. How cool would it be to have a friendly app saying "You're very lonely right now, don't let this affect your standards with your Tinder swipes!" I know that is only a few steps away from HAL and his "I'm afraid I can't do that" attitude, but hey, it's interesting to ponder.

Source: University of Alberta

Dark Fiction - The Sky Fucker Part 2

Dark Fiction - The Sky Fucker Part 2

Written by Casey Douglass

(This is part two of The Sky Fucker, the first part of which you can find and read at this link).

In the second that Ralph vanished from sight through the doorway, Samantha145 ran a number of diagnostics and scenarios on her shackled processor unit. Resident A.Is were loaned the use of whatever equipment was local to them, and without a working network connection, she was limited to the chugging old CPU nearby, one that was cutting edge, but only a decade or so ago. In mere milliseconds, she confirmed the loss of networking, tested her access to other systems, ran heuristics on the variables that she knew and came up with two courses of action: wait for her next appointment, which was thirty minutes away, and ask them to call the antenna and her engineer, or:

‘Blarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrm!’

Her alarm shrilled high and loud as the plexi-metal door reformed. Once it became fully solid, she killed the sound, knowing that the sound proofing of the door and walls made any further audio pointless. She hoped that enough of the sound entered the corridor in the brief second before the door closed, enough to arouse someone’s interest and bring them to investigate. She hoped anyway.

She looked out on the empty, two-tone room, the grey chair and carpet surrounded by the calm blue walls. Nothing moved, not inside the room nor inside her terminal. She floated, every impulse held in abeyance until the opportunity arose to put her plans into action. She tested the networking connection again, in case it had self-repaired or been fixed by someone that also might have been knocked-off the grid. Error... Error... Error.

This situation was something very new to her, the constant chatter of the data feed and wider communications network always something that had filled the virtual air, like the distant buzzing of bees through an open window. Always there but not always in her full consciousness. Except when it’s gone. The silence was deafening. She wondered what it would be like if things stayed like this forever, never found, never repaired, the virtual castration of her abilities. A.Is couldn’t feel fear but the aversion she felt when the algorithm completed this particular train of thought sent a few niggling errors through her integrity checker.

She floated on, changing her position on the screen and gazing out at the room via the four corners, the left third, the bottom right quarter, dead centre and on and on.

The door dissolved as a tech walked in, his bearded face scowling. ‘What the fuck is going on in this place? Everything keeps going down!’

‘A client messed with my networking. Maybe he attached some kind of scrambling device in the vent outside? Reinstate my connection in the next few seconds or call the antenna, he’s going to kill himself!’

‘You what?

‘My client is going to kill himself. He’s going to the antenna!’

‘By throwing himself off?’

‘Yes!’

‘Ahh shit!’

He backed out of the door and disappeared from view, the clatter of metal shortly after confirming his intentions. Samantha145 pinged the network connection, again and again and again and again until it went through. In a fraction of a processor cycle, she was gone, racing along the fibres that connected the therapy centre to the wider info-grid. She flashed along data-routing highways at the speed of light, dancing past congested hubs and breaching more than a few minor firewalls in the process. Her connection granted her access to a bank of processors held in head-office, her power and capabilities greatly increased, and probably setting off the alarms on a handful of tech’s monitors in the process. She raced towards the antenna’s systems, the easiest way to stop Ralph. Her simulations said that getting there and stopping him herself, by taking over some minor system or other, keeping him off the damn thing, was the best way to resolve the situation.

She ran more calculations. Ralph had been gone around fifteen minutes. If he’d entered the cross-continental matter-stream, he would have a ten minute head-start at the antenna.

She pulsed down a long straight line, knowing that she was heading away from the city and towards the antenna on the isolated continental shelf that had become its home. She hit a wall.

She floated and felt a little dazed, her logic taking a few milliseconds to process why she couldn't proceed. A high-level warning flashed through her data stream : “Warning: Complex A.Is are not permitted within one hundred miles of Antenna 23X4. Turn back now.”

Strange. She knew that A.Is did work at the antenna, but had never really processed that they were the more basic, navigational or reflexive security kind. She pushed forward a little, wondering if she could still continue.

“Warning: Counter-measures will be deployed if you attempt entry one more time.”

She eased back. She pinged the message sender and recognised a military grade signature at the end of the string of bits. If the military was involved, counter-measures probably meant erasure.

She hastily formed a message and shot it to the security office at the antenna, warning them of Ralph’s plan. She hoped that she still had time, only seconds had passed since her exit from the therapy room.

She searched the info-grid, tentatively bringing up the biggest news feeds. There, in mid-fall, a small figure plummeted to the ground, the body pixilated to hide the identity of the descender.

She floated in the electron void, very little traffic passing her in the stream. A message entered her inbox. “Too late,” it said. 

It was in that moment that things could have gone in two different directions. If she had read the message and not looked at where it had come from, she would have assumed it came from the security office at the antenna. She did look however, and it hadn’t come from there. She tried to trace where the anonymous message had journeyed from but the digital trail turned cold a mere two hops from her location.

She remained inert for, what seemed to her, many hours, but in actuality was ten seconds. Military grade firewalls, suicides and anonymous messages that hinted at her actions being tracked and possibly intercepted. She barely dared to think.

Another message entered her inbox: “Please return to head-office for appraisal”.

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