Tuesday, April 17, 2018

Who are you?

I find shows like West World, and Black Mirror, disturbing because they seem not that detached from reality. When they start dipping into what it means to be human. A book which also messed with my head is Homo Deus. Part of what it looks at, is how people and Artificial Intelligence will interact. Where will decisions be made? 



Right now, the lowest unit of decision making is the individual. But we all know we have a committee of competing desires (long term, short term, rational, emotional, cultural) in our head. What happens when decision making gets pushed down a level? What happens when decision making gets co-ordinated as we extend our ability to communicate? What happens when we hand over different parts of control?


When we start seeking out 'who we really are', and 'whether we have free will', things get messy. These questions drive us forward. Motivate us. West World simplifies that down to Three Key Drivers and a Backstory. This allows our days to be a loop. A bunch of habits that we repeat every time we wake up. Then, depending on how we get bumped by the world, we respond.

What Drives You?

What is your Backstory?

What is your Narrative?

This is how I understand Free Will and Privilege. Like a Galton Board/Bean Machine where we are presented with a number of choices. This creates the illusion of us being in control, because we feel like we are choosing to go left or right many times a day. The choices are presented to us by the world. We can't break the rules of physics, or the society we are in. Where we start - country, region, city, parents, wealth - matters.  Our drivers matter. Our backstory matters. Our narrative matters.

Bean Machine/Galton Board

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