lifestyle

The recent buzz around chatbots should remind us of a human weakness already widely exploited: We readily bond with machines, including the large profit machines known as corporations, often to our detriment.

One technically clued-up journalist this week told of his discomfort at being the target of an attempted seduction by a pre-release version of Microsoft’s new Bing search bot in the New York Times. It is doubtless alarming when silicon gives us the come-on. But we should be uncomfortable too when sense a brand’s personality or a corporation’s kindness.

We put faces on everything like a graffiti artist doodling a smiley on fire hydrants. This urge to personify means we can be readily persuaded to become emotionally engaged with objects and machines, ascribing to them a personhood into which we read personality, motives and morals. It is harmless to see a goofy grin on a fire hydrant, but dangerous when an illusion of personhood is at odds with.

Human intelligence relies on an immensely more complex signal processor than any of our silicon-based chatbots. And our signal processors are deeply embedded in bodies which, in turn, are deeply embedded in the world. No chatbot is ever going to come close to mimicking the output of such an astronomically complex system. 

Corporations will not match any personification we make of them either. They exist solely to generate profits for shareholders with no other motive. Even the greediest person does not do that. Employees of corporations, though fully human, are paid to return profit for shareholders, whether or not the method is paralleled by normal human behaviour. Other employees are there to put a human face on it all.

So, while we should not worry that chatbots are getting close to being genuinely comparable with human intelligence, we should be worried we can be persuaded otherwise. We should explore this tendency to personify. It underlies current vulnerabilities to machine romance, notably to branding, public relations, are all charming chatbots attached to profit machines.

We should see machines for what they are, machines, not persons or pseudo persons to either love or to hate, or anything in the middle. These emotions are wasted. Instead we need to know how the machines that serve us operate, where they succeed and where they fail. Knowing this we can decide on  rules which would make them work better, rather than how we feel about them.

A hard-headed approach may one day be useful in navigating a world full of charming chatbots. We can warm up by finding ways not to be duped and manipulated by legions of highly sophisticated profit machines. ■

The growing allure of driving and flight simulators show that our understandable techno-weariness should not blind us to an enormous recreational and educational potential.

Simulators make accessible incredible experiences which in their real form are only available for a tiny, privileged minority. It might not be “our thing” but it is still worth thinking about.

It goes against the grain to fire up the PC at home in the evening, especially if we have sat at one all day at work. But overcoming the aversion can be worth it.

The same computers that sap our lifeblood with spreadsheets can also take us into richly-detailed parallel worlds created for our amusement, engagement, education and excitement. 

The processing power and software needed to create these incredible illusions is getting less expensive by the month. And each extra GHz increment makes them all the more convincing.

The processing power we now have allows for a mind-boggling level of immersion, with headsets now able to give us all-round 3d vision as we move and turn our heads, as in real life.

The $90bn games industry taps technology by slaking our thirst for fantasy. But simulators take the opposite approach, trying to reproduce the real world, with accuracy their benchmark.

Flying and driving simulators have the added advantage of trying to mimic ways we already navigate our world by controlling machines, albeit ones made of metal not pixels.

There is typically a competitive element to simulated vehicles like in real ones, but simulators are also intended purely for the experience they provide. Most users appreciate both.

Simmers may fly imaginary combat missions or drive in circuit races online, but they also fire up their engines with no aim other than the sights, sounds and trance of the activity.

Cars and planes also have a complex engineering, science and human history to draw on. Simulators allow us to learn about these in a uniquely hands-on way.

And being able to be almost anywhere we can think of can awaken a feeling of wonder, exploration and global consciousness, and literally open our eyes to geography.

Like with meditation, music, running, gaming, painting., reading or writing simming can change the way we think and feel for the better, without the risk of a psychoactive drug.

Some experimental digital formats beyond sims even focus entirely on this mind-altering potential, with “technodelics” designed to deliver psychoactive audio and visuals.

With our movements restricted by covid-19 and, increasingly, climate change, we can still wake up with a flight over the fjords near Nuuk or putter over the Ganges delta in a triplane.

Technology need not always drain us. Driving and flying simulators show the digital world can also provide accessible recreation enriching our engagement in the real world. ■

The first of a short series which will explore driving and flight simulators before dabbling in technodelics.

Slovenia is streets ahead in taking improv drama back to its starting point as a teaching device for children. It has been a commonplace extracurricular school activity for nigh-on two decades. 

“It can help children who are not good at school, those who are introverted or anxious,” says Mistral Majer, the 31-year-old who now runs Slovenia’s High School Impro League (SILA), having herself joined a team at 14. 

There are now 20 teams practising weekly with the help of a SILA-trained mentor. Their head-to-head improv clashes are scored by both judges and audience. Another dozen teams are in “incubation” poised to join the fray. Thousands of children have taken part.

The league takes improv back close to its roots in the educational work of Viola Spolin, an actor who created around 200 improvisational theatre games for underprivileged immigrant children in Chicago in the 1940s and 50s.

Ms Majer says creating impromptu dramas develops problem-solving, listening, teamwork, public speaking, storytelling and self-confidence. Around 70% of improvisers in the league are female.

“You learn how to play different roles in life,” says dramatist Tomaz Lapajne, a veteran improviser. A player might play the role of a prime minister in one scene and a homeless person in the next. Public speaking classes, by contrast, focuses on taking a high status role.

Improv may help ease depression, anxiety and shyness. Its team ethos create social groups, interaction and trust which could counter isolation. SILA has worked to include children with special needs in a programme called “Play with me”.

As with jazz, improv’s musical inspiration, there is no one improv orthodoxy. There are nine in North America and Europe, according to Chicago-based improviser Jonathan Pitts. Despite differences most share the cooperative ethos of building on other players’ contributions, an approach boiled down to the phrase, “Yes, and…”.

Participants also need to tolerate failure, a fact of life in an ad hoc artform. “Failing is not bad,” says Ms Majer. Watching a practice session or show for more than a few minutes shows everyone fails, with experience telling mostly in an ability to recover.

The goal is not to learn to enjoy failing, says Shawn Kinley, a veteral Canadian improviser teaching a workshop in Slovenia’s capital Ljubljana. Instead improvisers need to “fail well”, accepting failure and seeing its usefulness in learning.

It is not too late if we have already failed to learn these lessons in our youth, as many Slovenian have. Requiring only a room and a mentor, improv has become an attractive and affordable pastime and team-building exercise for professional teamworkers.

Medics have been encouraged to try improv as a way to roll with the unpredictability of their work lives. Teachers are encouraged to use improv skills to spice up their lessons and to teach it to students. We learn lessons better when they are linked to emotions, says Mr Lapajne.

And money makers like Google, PepsiCo, and McKinsey have seen the potential upsides of improv too, including sessions in some of their training. The big data company Palantir goes a step further making an improv handbook, “Impro”, required reading for new recruits.

There is money to be made from giving workshops, but Slovenia’s school league rejects a commercial model. There are no fees, to avoid financial barriers for less-well-off. Instead the modest costs are covered by grants from government youth programmes.

The league is competitive, despite success being underpinned by cooperation, flexibility and acceptance of failure. Improv’s unexpected twists often makes it funny, but doing this reliably typically relies more on playing it straight than on an individual’s wit.

As adults we now flip between ever more roles in both our workplaces and homes. It is perhaps high time we followed Slovenia’s example and gave future generations insight into this challenge as part of their school experience. ■

“Losers”, an eight part series on Netflix, offers welcome and uplifting insight into the rich rewards of failing.

There are hardly any winners among us so it is extraordinary the extent to which they hog our attention.

The exceptional is curious and curiosity attracts audiences, but making an exception a media staple makes for an exceptionally warped outlook.

Comparing our running to Usain Bolt’s, our business to Warren Buffett’s or writing to Mark Twain’s is a recipe for feeling pretty ordinary.

There are necessarily 99.999%, or more, losers in most rankings, most of which we never even get a chance to join.

It is inaccurate and harmful to believe we operate in a meritocracy. Luck plays the largest part in any success we have.

Redressing the balance
“Losers” helps by telling the story of sportspeople who were near the top of their field, but were lucky enough to miss the number one spot.

It offers joyful tales of the suboptimal from boxers, ice skaters, dog sledders, curlers, ultra runners, footballers, golfers and basketball players.

Being denied the pinnacle in one narrow area, we learn, is often a helpful reminder its pursuit comes at the expense of other things.

French ice skater Surya Bonaly (right) found it impossible to secure Olympic gold, I knew. The fact she prospered afterwards, I did not.

So the heroic failures in this series led to new types of goal and new forms of success, typically better than being breifly number one.

Dominant winners will typically only get this chance when they get over the hill. Losers get this chance handed to us early.

Reevaluating dedication
Our dedications are praised, while our addictions are often scorned, but they can be seen as two sides of the same coin.

Dedication to something, just like an addiction, can obscure the negative effects it can have. Losing is a lucky chance to take stock.

“Losers” offers a range of inspiring and engaging stories about how our misfortunes can turn into new kinds of winning.

Point-scoring helps keep us entertained and motivated, but is an extremely unreliable measure of success. ■