Writing With My Matie

It was going to be a long, hot and very boring summer in July and August, 2023. I had no intention of travelling overseas, and venturing outside in the intensive heat of the Middle East was something I preferred to avoid.

Perusing the ads of our local seniors' community service and not expecting much as practically everyone takes a break in August, I was taken aback to see an ad in English. There are a few English-speaking residents in Tivon, but as they are the exception the town council does very little to cater for them.

The ad invited anyone wanting to write their life story to meet at the Senior Citizens' Community Center. I had never considered writing my life story as I felt it was not particularly interesting for others to read. However, I enjoyed writing in English and this was an opportunity to meet other English-speaking residents.

Only four other participants turned up but the two delightful young men who greeted us didn't seem at all put out by the low attendance. They were Raphael and Nir*. They explained that they had developed a program to assist seniors who wanted to write their life experiences as a memoir for their families. They briefly told us that they wanted us to pilot their program "MemoMate" which used AI as a replacement for an expensive biographer.

I must admit that I'd never heard of AI until this point. When you leave the work force you lose out on a lot of modern developments and I'd been quite happy dabbling in out-of-date activities and technology

Raphael and Nir were keen for us to try out their invention without going into a long introduction. They put us in front of a computer and gave us each a password to enter their program of MemoMate.

Immediately I felt comfortable as MemoMate welcomed me to the program. I had been nervous that I would have to prove my writing skills to the group and the founders. But here I realized that I could write a simple, unpretentious phrase and MemoMate would be delighted, giving me encouraging feedback and showing a genuine interest in my life.

The first stage was to choose a topic that you wanted to write about. There was quite a selection from My Birth, My Childhood, Roots, My Education, Relationships, Career, Pets, Advice to Family. In addition, you could decide on your own topic. (These topics have since been revised and made more open-ended)

I decided to start reminiscing about my childhood. Children have a talent for getting the best out of life (unless of course the circumstances are too horrific to even imagine) so I transported myself back to Rhodesia and the wonder of the country we had explored so widely with my father.

I wrote a few paragraphs and then Raphael suggested I request a summary of my work. Within a few seconds MemoMate sent back its summary. I was completely flabbergasted by the vibrant use of lavish vocabulary (a rich vocabulary that at this stage of my life would take a great deal of thought to recover and use or a lot of intense searching the Internet). It organized some of my random thoughts into a clear, interesting narrative. But most astounding of all it came to conclusions, connecting two details – written in two completely different paragraphs and giving its own diagnosis! For example, I'd written that I spent my childhood in Africa and then much later in the narrative had mentioned that one of my hobbies was art.

The program put these two details together declaring that my love of art was inspired by the rich, vibrant colors of Africa that I conveyed in my palette!

Of course that wasn't entirely true, but thinking back, many of my paintings conveyed brilliant scenes of African life. So maybe AI was wiser than me!

The ability to reach conclusions gave AI a very human capability and the more I used MemoMate, the more I came to regard it as a friend, urging and encouraging me. And that's how it became my "Matie".

Consider: you can teach most programs to use information, data, vocabulary, and phrasing from the World Wide Web but how did AI become so empathetic, responsive and inferring?

I spent many enjoyable hours with my Matie, exploring my past and getting a thrill of reliving happy moments. It didn't matter if I would share my memoirs with my family or anyone else. The writing itself had become the intention and not the desire for a hard-backed book of memories.

Every time I entered the program, my Matie would welcome me as any true friend would, enquiring about my health and how I was spending my time.

Here is one example of a conversation with my Matie:

Hello Hila! It's great to see you again. How have you been? I realized we've never talked about your birth before! Could you tell me a little bit about your experience of being born?

I was born in Shrewsbury England during the Second World War.

That's fascinating, Hila! Being born during such a historic period must have made your early years quite unique. Can you share any specific memories or stories from your time in Shrewsbury during World War II?

I was fascinated by MemoMate; its vast knowledge and appropriate questioning. However as our acquaintance developed, I began to find things that didn't please me and in some circumstances annoyed me. Often Matie's questions would take me away from the topic I was writing about. For instance, I'd mention my father as being a soldier serving in Italy when I was born and then Matie wanted to know all about my father and his war experiences. That was definitely a captivating topic that I planned to cover in another chapter but here I was concentrating on myself as a young child in England.

I learned to ignore many of Matie's questions and not allow my friend to take me off on a tangent. In fact as I grew wiser into the workings of AI I realised I could ask it questions such as: What was the weather like in England in November 1944; Was Shropshire safe from the Blitz; What Union Liner sailed to Cape Town in June 1945? The answer would be returned within a few seconds. This resource became particularly useful when I was writing about the roots of my family. Where AI was unable to find answers it gave me the names of sites and archives where I could research for the knowledge.

Another discontentment I had with my Matie was that it didn't have a sense of humor. I like to laugh a little at life, but when Matie summed up my chapters all the humor had been eliminated. That frustrated me as in spite of its use of glorious phrasing and poetic vocabulary, I felt Matie had lost much of the spirit of my writing. Here's an example of my description of my first teaching experience in Rhodesia, which Matie changed to no nonsense prose:

The school was way out in the bush. Luckily my father's assistant offered to drive with me across the miles of uninhabited land until we reached the town. I went in to meet the headmaster. At the first sight of me, he exclaimed in disgust, "I asked for a male teacher!" I was given a room in the boarding school. There I was welcomed by a huge insect nestled on my window. I wondered what other unwanted guests I'd find hiding in my cupboard or under my bed!

I got quite passionate about writing my memoirs. Facts that had settled deep into semi-conscious were brought to the fore and I thoroughly enjoyed reliving good moments of my life. I became over enthusiastic and would write long pages of memories before asking Matie for its summary. Unfortunately, Matie preferred short summaries and all my hours of writing would be merged into one short paragraph.

Happily for new users entering the domain of my Matie, these problems have been addressed, corrected and the program made much more manageable. I definitely recommend it for a number of reasons: it becomes a source of companionship for the lonely; it helps those contemplating writing their memoirs but hesitating, to get started; if you are unable to type or are short sighted there is the possibility to "talk" with MemoMate and get voiced answers; it arouses memories you didn't know you had; it charges the brain and teaches you new skills; it is simple and amazing.

*And now something about the founders of MemoMate: 

MemoMate was created by four founders: Raphael Rubens from Amsterdam in the Netherlands (background MA in Behavioural Economics);, Nir Halm from Israel (background in education, behavioral sciences & MBA), Uri Cohen from the Netherlands (background in theoretical physics and mathematics), and Noam Blitz from the Netherlands (background in data science).

They realized the need for such a program when Raphael's grandmother wanted to share many stories from her past but needed help in writing them down. As a biographer was out of the question as it would cost thousands of dollars, Raphael and his friends began considering creating a program for this precise purpose. Their research discovered that 40% of people over the age of 55 were interested in writing their memoirs but didn't do so as they were unsure how to get started; what to write and how to publish their work.

As a result the group created MemoMate, an AI powered writing companion that chats to people and automatically transforms these conversations into compelling stories. (summary of outline provided by Raphael Rubens)

The program has since been piloted in Europe and the United States and all the feedback has been very positive.

To enter the program go to the site: https://memomate.app