Agents Of Change

What technologies of today mean to the world.

- Winner Ammerman

THE EMERGENCE OF PSYCHOTECHNOLOGYIt’s worth considering how an AI agent programmed with the science of persuasion, armed with the details of our personality and behavior profiles, and equipped with mass customization, will be able to learn how to sway our decisions and actions. This will be particularly true if that agent seems humanlike, or anthropomorphic, in appearance or speech. B.J. Fogg’s term, captology, hasn’t really penetrated the popular zeitgeist. As I’ve already mentioned, since we are dealing with a new form of psychological technology at the intersection of humans and machines, I have settled on the term psychotechnology.

Imagine what might happen if an AI agent were fed all kinds of data about people and then was instructed to conduct hundreds, even thousands, of tiny experiments to test what might work best in persuading them to act in a certain way. The AI might calculate their OCEAN profile, the profile of their brain chemistry, and whether they are more persuaded by authority or liking or consensus. If they are more persuaded by liking, the AI agent will discover that becoming friends with them is the most effective way of influencing them.

Clifford Nass is another professor from Stanford who has researched how computers and technology play a role in influencing how we act. As Nass said in an interview with NPR: “We tend to establish really rich and long-lasting and complex relationships with our computers and any technology that talks or seems to even hint at the slightest bit of intelligence.”14