If you’re someone who is still doing Wordle – and why wouldn’t you be? – you may also be aware of Wordle Bot, also operated by the New York Times.
Wordle Bot analyzes your performance on Wordle daily and assigns you a score based on your performance that day.
It turns out that Wordle Bot is a dark and dangerous road to travel. There are days when I think my choices on the puzzle were genius, only to discover that Wordle Bot didn’t recognize my word choice or identified a dozen better options than mine.
It’s a simple algorithm, of course, but I’ve come to see Wordle Bot as a sentient, judgemental, oftentimes cruel entity, incapable of seeing my value, ingenuity, and worth.
Elysha feels the same way, too. Perhaps even more so on some days.
Then this happened:
Last week Wordle Bot assigned me a perfect score. My first and only perfect score thus far.
For a moment, all seemed right with the world. Wordle Bot’s judgment of me was righteous and fair.
I couldn’t wait to show Elysha what a good and just human being I was.
All of this emotional upheaval from a website designed to analyze my proficiency in a word game that ultimately means nothing.
Just imagine when we have real robots with eyes and kneecaps and shoulder blades wandering around our homes, commenting on our every choice.
We’re doomed.
