What do you think, can you tell when you are interacting with a machine as opposed to with a human? In some occasions, this is a rather simple task. We all are positive that the device that gives us a snack in exchange for a coin is indeed a machine—and the experience is very different if the same transaction is made with a human. Sometimes, however, things get trickier. Think for example of the machines answering phones in several technical services. But ok, so far so good: we all eventually recognise them as machines. However, is this always the case?
Impressive, right? So, this is ineludible… at some point we won’t be able tell the difference. The question is what to do about it and how to use it to our advantage. Paraphrasing Rick Dereck: Replicants are like any other machine, are either a benefit or a hazard. If they’re a benefit it IS our problem!
The project IBSEN is interested in human-machine interactions, and how we can learn from them to foster good policies, collective intelligence and healthy social interactions—among others. What we know is that humans are unique, and that trying to predict behaviours is often a synonymous of failure. However, we have also found interesting, robust patterns that help us to understand how and why we make the decisions we make. Additionally, some of these insights give us reasons to be optimistic (did you know that about a 20% of the population behaves altruistically no matter what?). If you are further interested in the topic we strongly recommend this article from FETFX, in which the project coordinator Anxo Sánchez explains his views on this.