Oct 12, 2021
What Does a Triadic Self Feel Like?
In Apple’s rendition of Asimov’s Foundation, the empire is ruled by 3 clones of the same original ruler. These clones are at different ages where the middle-aged clone is the ruler, the elder is an advisor and the younger is his successor. By some curious coincidence, the name of the emperor in Asimov’s Foundation was Cleon I. This is the same name as the trio of clones that serve as emperors in the TV adaptation. Cleon is just scrambled letters of ‘clone’.
In addition, there is a character Demerzel that serves the trio of clones. She is ever-present with the clones and all their ancestors. From singing lullabies to them before their birth to sending them off to incineration in their death.
Demerzel is immortal because she’s an android. In Asimov’s Foundation universe there are no AIs with this exception. Apparently, an AI is always present that is serving (or perhaps manipulating) the rulers of the civilization. This dynamic of a clone that is present with his other clones at different ages is fascinating. It is also made more intriguing with the presence of an AI that ensures its continuity.
I want to explore this dynamic further with present-day AI. What if you have a language model-driven chatbot that presents various versions of your own self: A younger future self (dawn), a current self (day), and an older wiser seld (dusk).
The constitution of our individual selves is a consequence of who we interact with throughout our lives. How will it be different if we could interact with our future and past selves? Would that give us different perspectives that we cannot see? Humans have always been boxed in with the situation that all self-interaction is with one’s current self. But what if you had access to your youthful and wiser selves? How does that change your current self for the better?
Humans are always limited to being able to do one task at the same time or more broadly see one perspective at a time. What if you can interact with yourselves that have different sensibilities. A younger you looks at the world with excitement and wonder. An older you looks at the world with wisdom and concern for your overall legacy and impact on this world. Your present self is focused primarily on what is present and what is urgent. But what if you could interact with your other-selves as you would interact with another?
The dynamics of interacting with another self have a different feel than interacting in your own mind with yourself. What kind of new emergent behavior arises when yourself is externally rendered and tuned for interaction?
This is novel and fascinating enough that is worth the effort to build! The future of human-centered AI may look entirely different from what we are used to. This is wild enough of an idea that people might just embrace it! Will we in the near future be interacting with AI renditions of ourselves? Typically, depictions of human and AI interactions are as if the AI is some other person with a different personality (see: ‘Her’)
But what if that personality is your personality. Just a younger and older version of the personality? That is you could travel forward and backward in time to mold these personalities through interaction. How would that make your present self different from what it is now? How do minds become different when minds can time travel between their different selves?
What does a triadic self look and feel like?
