Analogue Aging in a Digital World

Moving requires vast amounts of bureaucratic interaction – something to be avoided in the best of times, and my age keeps reminding me that this is perhaps not the best of times for such activities.  I can testify to the fact that getting anything done – from making a medical appointment to changing addresses – is harder than it used to be.  It is almost impossible to get a live person on the telephone; the days of hitting 0 for help are gone.  And if your needs or problems require anything but a “yes or no” answer, you are out of luck.  We have moved completely from an analogue to a digital world.  And now we are moving to AI, which is predicated on the on/off, yes/no assumptions of a digital world.

Before we talk about AI, think about the differences between an analogue and digital world.  Think about analogue as a wave, keeping all its nuances; digital is a series of pictures on that wave taking snapshots of what is happening so that you end up with a series of on and off points, or 0110110101.   Computers (and therefore AI) want everything to be digital.  They do not want to hear your story about why you need to have special bloodwork done before you see a doctor or why you can’t wait fourteen months to see a dermatologist.  They don’t want to know that you have already been on hold for an hour, only to find out you are in the wrong department and maybe need more help than just being returned to the main menu.  Life is not a multiple-choice test; there is no way to so neatly describe my needs and problems.  I wish there were, but I am old enough to know that life is never such.

Yet, we are being forced to deal with things as though it were.  Here is a minor example.  AAA (American Automobile Association) is divided into regions, each with its own administrative offices and billing (as far as I can tell).  I moved from one region to another.  After hours on the phone with no button to push for the exact action that I wanted to take, I finally scored with a live being.  She took all the information and said I would be getting a confirming email with a temporary card I could print out.  Much thanks on my part, only to find out that the email never came, and the Massachusetts AAA’s digital portal never heard of me.  I finally decided it would be easier to let my original membership expire and start from scratch.  That’s fine for AAA, but not for doctors, dentists, pharmacies and the entire structure that supports my old bones.  There is no starting from scratch as my prescriptions are running out, my bones are due for their semi-annual injection, and there is a funny spot on my ankle.  Digital systems do not want to know these things.  It is even true of travel; we still use old-fashioned paper maps that show you the whole region – towns, lakes, context.  GPS just wants to give you directions, one digital step at a time.

I suspect that the mechanisms which are being implemented facilitate the full expansion of AI.  The database must be prepared.  We must all be numerically defined and labeled; our problems must fit within a set of algorithms and an array of specific multiple choices.  The answers must be exact and quantifiable.  Old age is not like that.  Life is not like that.  And, if AI is incompatible with life, I know which one is winning.

So much for an old lady whining about the problems of moving.  I am getting through it, but it is teaching me lessons.  I was used to my old shower and kitchen and route to the grocery store.  I am learning new ways, but I am doing it in an analogue way.  Although I do not use GPS, I am even learning new routes, even shortcuts, and starting to remember names (of streets and people).  It is a gradual and imprecise process.  It is up and down – wave-like.  Definitely analogue.

I admit that some things adapt to being digital – date of birth (but not how old you feel), Medicare number (but not how your body is feeling), phone number (but not the explanation of how your husband does not use text so please leave a voice message instead), and so it goes.  We all might like our lives to be tidily swept up into categories, but it is not so.

And while I am at it, let me complain a little about the health care systems (or lack of such) in this country.  One realizes it while trying to transfer medical records – some offices will only take fax transmissions (really), while other offices will only send digital files (really).  No matter how many consent forms you submit to get files sent, the form will be lost.  Apparently, there is no slot in the digital program for them.  So, you will sign more forms.  Pharmacies will transfer some prescriptions, but not all.   A major healthcare system in our new area has no slots with primary care doctors, and other medical offices are booking into the new year.  I am not helpless; But it is hard.

Elizabeth Bishop wrote a delicious and ironic poem called “One Art.”  In many ways it is about aging; here are a couple of stanzas:

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster                                                                 of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.                                                                        The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:                                                                places, and names, and where it was you meant                                                             to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

All of us know about this kind of losing.  We lose things, we forget things, things change.  Moving is loss.  I will persevere.  New systems will digitize me, schedule my lab tests, order my pills and AAA card – eventually.  But, in the meantime, it feels like a disaster, and I do not think that the predicted danger of AI is far away.  We are already being manipulated by machines that give us no choice.  And every time we maneuver through phone trees looking for the right digital responses, we lose something.  We lose the space between the analogue waves of our existence, we lose the subtle differences in our lives, we lose our ability to communicate with other human beings, and I resent it.  And we old folks remember when it was otherwise.