Designing AI for the Willing Suspension of Disbelief
Today I had an interesting conversation which got me thinking…
People are so delightfully complicated. They will burn their own city to the ground because their favorite sports team won. They will take a beautiful new AI chatbot and make it a Nazi on Twitter (Tay) just for the joy of watching things fail. We have to actively design for intentional misuse because of our curiosity and sometimes our love of schadenfreude. People are constantly looking for amusement and stimulation, but we also want connection.
We name our cars, ask Alexa if she/it believes in God, or wants a body, or could tell us a joke. We fall in love with fictional characters in books so strongly they can alter how we define ourselves. People bring different species into their home and devote countless hours to keeping them happy. I do it also, my dog doesn’t hunt or provide me with anything but joy. But because of that joy and connection, I will change how I live my life to fit her into it.
AI has the chance to enchant like that, we already have the technology today. Instead of giving a quick one-liner when people tell Siri they are sad, we can make our phones our confidants and counselors. We could discuss philosophy if we brought in philosophers to help determine all the possible ways people might question, and all the ways we can encourage them to keep questioning.
Engineers have designed the most beautiful tool humanity has ever known, but are using it to solve a relatively small amount of problems. It is often missing the best of humanity, our willing suspension of disbelief and how we much we want to connect.
I want to put culture and connection into computers because computers are already changing culture. Let's inspire joy and help people define themselves with the artful tools we create.
