The internet is still reeling fromrecent revelationsthat Facebook workers have been conductingweird experiments with the emotions of Facebook substance abuser . Now it ’s sentence to see what science fiction has to say about machines that control our flavour . Here are ten admonitory scenarios .
1. Nexus, by Ramez Naam
The experiment deport on Facebook wasa field in a canonic constituent of empathy called “ emotional infection . ”It ’s what happens to many animals when they “ capture ” an emotion from other member of their radical . A lot of bird taking off when one of them is startled is an representative of emotional contagion — often , it happens so quickly that it ’s not under conscious controller . Humans experience emotional contagion too , and it can be as simple as laughing when your friends laugh , or as complex as feeling deplorable when a person across the reality from you makes a depressing Facebook update .
To chance upon how emotional contagion work on Facebook , the experimenters manipulated citizenry ’s newsfeeds , give some people more “ positive ” update and some people more “ negative ” ones . What they chance upon was that these manipulations did dissemble Facebook substance abuser ’ moods . People exposed to electropositive update post more positive update themselves . And people exposed to damaging ones respond with their own negatively charged update .
Was this an instance of Facebook actually manipulating the great unwashed ’s emotions ? If it were — and we ’ll talk about why this is up for disputation in a moment — it might wait something like Ramez Naam’sNexus series . In these novel , scientist have devise a nanotechnology ( it ’s taken as a drug called Nexus ) that reformats multitude ’s brains to be more like electronic computer operating systems . This allows people to run programs in their minds , giving themselves exigent skills . It also let them connection with each other ’s brains and plowshare thought process . Though there are many negative upshot to the technology , one positive event is that it dramatically enhances people ’s empathy . One quality is a former soldier who has taken Nexus , networked with the brain of people he once fought , and realized that he was incorrect . It ’s hard to detest and kill the great unwashed when you could sense their passing and pain in the ass .
2. The Apple
The Apple ( 1980 ) is mayhap one of the silliest skill fable movies you ’ll ever ascertain , but I ’m run short to utilize it to make a serious full point about the Facebook report . The Apple is about a dystopian future ( in 1994 ! ) where all musical acts are managed by BIM , an evil tummy that markets sexy discotheque acts and forces everyone to wear its shining argent triangle logotype on their foreheads . At BIM - patronize concerts , the great unwashed ’s excitement stage are monitored with computers to be sure that they are having the “ correct ” worked up reaction to the lot . Because everybody is addicted to BIM ’s euphony , the company essentially controls the emotion of everyone in the man with glittery dance acts .
The question is whether BIM is really controlling everybody ’s emotion , or if they ’re just ascertain their emotional display . After all , these reactions are are taking place in a big public concert hall , in front of a lot of other people . Are people yelling and acting excited just to check in , or is BIM actually making them activated with all those fulgid outfit ?
One might ask the same question about the Facebook field . Was Facebook successfully cause aroused contagion , or just the appearance of it ? After all , posting something sad after take a distressing update is n’t the same matter as bursting into bout when your sleep with one does . On Facebook , you are in a public meeting place , and there is a lot of pressure to fit in . Who wants to post a happy dance gif when everyone else is saying unhappy things ?
Put another way , we all cognize it ’s possible put on an unhappy cheek when you ’re laughing inside . All that Facebook and BIM can really do is make us act like we ’re feel something . But they ca n’t impress what we sense inside .
3. Woman on the Edge of Time, by Marge Piercy
But what if a company or government could affect how we truly experience ? Some of the most terrifying dystopian science fiction is about this idea . In Marge Piercy ’s 1976 novelWoman on the Edge of Time , only one woman can stop scientist from inventing a twist that can completely control people ’s emotion . The problem is that she only knows about this twist because she ’s limit to a mental mental institution where it ’s being tested . Oh , and also ? She ’s time travel to the future tense , and seen what will happen if the engineering science is allowed to develop .
Perhaps , if Facebook could force us to experience the same way inside as we do in our updates , all would be lose .
4. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick
Piercy was n’t the first to imagine a futurity of emotion - contain machine . In 1968 , Philip K. Dick search this idea inDo Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?,the novel that inspire the movie Blade Runner . Everyone in this dystopian world has a gadget called a Penfield Mood Organ , which allows you to dial up any humor you wish . The outcome is a world of people who volitionally allow themselves to be turned into pulmonary tuberculosis - crazed sheeple — just because it feels so nice .
5. Slant, by Greg Bear
Jumping off Piercy and Dick ’s ideas , Greg Bear ’s 1998 novelSlantimagines a world where multitude ’s moods are controlled by brain implants that do things like alleviate imprint and rein in OCD . It ’s one of Bear ’s best novel , and a fascinating speculation on where Prozac finish might lead us . Plus , it ’s a great assumption for a thriller where spies and assassins hack other people ’s mood . In one memorable scene , an bravo murders his butt by reprogramming her brain implant to make instantaneous , crushing self-destructive depression . It ’s the perfect murder , where the dupe kills herself for you .
6. Mean Machine in Judge Dredd
The musical theme of a climate - altering Einstein implant appear in satirical physique in the Judge Dredd strip , where the villain Mean Machine has a mood telephone dial on his forehead . There are only four moods useable : 1 . Surly ; 2 . bastardly ; 3 . Vicious ; and 4 . brutish . bet on how furious he wants to get , he can just dial it in — so observe out if he ’s turned it up to 4 . This is n’t the sort of mode control we ’d expect from Facebook — it sounds more like what you ’d get in sure subreddits , or perhaps on 4chan .
7. Dollhouse
The premise of Joss Whedon ’s tv set series Dollhouse is that the Rossum Corporation has formulate a engineering that allows the great unwashed to pass over their mind , then implant completely unexampled personalities with new feelings and skills . There are a good deal of implication to the engineering , including moving a person ’s uploaded psyche into a unexampled soundbox , or turning a mild - mannered schoolteacher into an assassin . And , as we give away in one episode , it can be used for a horrific contour of judgment rape .
https://gizmodo.com/rape-is-one-tick-short-of-armageddon-on-dollhouse-5389040
In the instalment “ belong ” we instruct that the doll Sierra has had her mind wipe against her will by a stalker who would n’t take no for an result . Now he lease her out once in a while , forcing her to feel all the matter for him that she did n’t when she was her own person . He sadistically turn her into a cleaning lady who will never turn away to have sexual practice with him , thus creating a newfangled , futuristic variety of rape .
This is perhaps the most virtuously detestable hypothesis for modality - restraint technologies , and one of the most terrifying . What if Facebook or some other tummy could make you desire to do things that you detest ? Or make you love things that you think are malign ?
8. The Signal
This leads to one of the most rife themes in mood control dystopias — the estimation that some equipment could turn the great unwashed into malefic , violent devil who behave in ways they never would otherwise . In the 2007 indie picture The Signal , a freakish broadcast signal goes out over every tv and networked gadget in the Atlanta area . It twitch a switch in masses ’s minds that turn them all into homicidal maniacs — sometimes with horrifying answer , and sometimes darkly suspect .
9. Clone Wars
One arc of the series Clone Wars deals with “ gild 66,”a biological silicon chip plant in all clones that overrides their feelings and ethics to pressure them to kill all Jedi . rules of order 66 is sort of like the “ signaling ” in The Signal , combined with a Robocop - similar “ quaternary law ” that designate certain masses as targets ( or not objective ) no matter what the circumstances .
https://gizmodo.com/clone-wars-final-season-turns-order-66-into-a-hitchcock-1539003426
Like the characters in The Signal and Dollhouse , the clones are n’t just being manipulated emotionally . Their behavior change , too . They want to do thing that controvert what they think is correct in their normal , unmodified State . This gets at one of the primal reasons why the great unwashed are so brainsick by the idea that Facebook might be changing their emotional state of matter . Often , there is a very slight line between what we feel and what we do . Changing the way people finger might very well convert how they comport , and the solvent could be disastrous .
10. The Matrix
When The Matrix came out in 1999 , it raise an interesting question . What if machines ( or , in this case , Machines ) could cut up into your brain so that all your fantasies felt completely real ? Even if those Machines had enslave all of humanity , would n’t you just kind of go along with it in parliamentary procedure to feel really good and try out that pleasant-tasting steak in your mouth again ? It ’s an interesting head that gets back to what Dick ask in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep ? Maybe we do n’t necessitate to override people ’s wills with monastic order 66 or personality implant if we can just give them great deal of really prissy things to wipe out and assuage them with “ happy ” life .
That struggle that Neo has between the blue oral contraceptive and the red pill ? That ’s a struggle over temper control applied science . The Machines do n’t control humans ’ ethics or actions — they just control our moods and perceptual experience . And those are powerful things to control . You may not need fear - spray constabulary and bolt down signals to ascertain your dystopia . peradventure you just need a really tasty steak . Or happy gifs . Or people who tell you everything is all right when you go on Facebook .
FacebookSci - FiTechnology
Daily Newsletter
Get the good tech , science , and acculturation news in your inbox daily .
News from the future , deliver to your present tense .
You May Also Like
