Sofie and the Virtual Person Project

Humans are social creatures. We notice the behavior of those around us and what we see influences our own behavior.

This is just as true online as it is in person.

There are two important mechanisms to modeling behavior - repetition and reaction.

👉 Any behavior that we see regularly becomes normalized. Whether we agree with it or not, it becomes a part of the social experience.

👉 Any behavior that gets a reaction, whether it is positive or negative, is in effect rewarded.

🧠 These are deeply wired instincts that have helped us regulate social behavior for millennia and social media is designed around manipulating these functions.

Among other criteria, the algorithms behind social media reward regular content creation and elicited reactions. Through these they have nudged many of us into developing habits or producing content categories that are more about driving activity (and eyeballs onto advertising) than building genuine community.

The introduction of autonomous AI agents, or bots, only makes the situation worse. In our minds the content produced by AI is interpreted the same way we interpret human content.

I wanted to think about how AI could be used to promote positive role models and behavior online. The result was the story "Sofie and the Virtual Person Project"

This story is told in articles and social media posts, the same way that we get much of our information today.

You can find the story in the newest issue of Vagobond Magazine https://www.vagobondmagazine.com/vagobond-magazine-volume-2-issue-5-may-2023/ along with other stories and articles about the new world of web3.