Saturday 14 June 2003

Pic of the day: A virtual wedding. I have no idea whether the bride and groom (to the right, facing the druid) are actually wed in real life, though ... these were friends of my friends so I just kinda dropped by.

Bodiless socializing

It seems funny to even say it, but I guess I have been very social lately. I have spent hours each day in the company of other people, on my free time. Not only am I not being paid for it, you could say that I even pay for it. And still I don't leave my living room.

Yes, I am talking (mostly) about the online game DAoC, although I guess you could say message boards are kind of social too. But there is definitely social interaction in between all the sword and sorcery in the game. You may say that some of my online friends are not who they pretend to be; true, but that is also the case in many workplaces, churches, not to mention bars. You still get a feeling for people when your virtual life depends on them, and the other way around. You find out who get along and who can't stand each other; who is greedy and who is generous; who is joking and who is serious.

Sure, it is not like actually hanging out with friends. The biggest difference is that it hurts my wrist. I do not usually touch and smell my friends anyway, well not to a great extent. It is mostly talking. And I talk less in person than I do online. This is partly because in person I rarely have to coordinate attacks on superiorly armed enemies. And also because in person, you can see me listening. I am a very active listener. You will be in no doubt about whether you have my attention. This is hard to convey in a virtual reality.

For the vast majority of the characters I have played, I mostly used to "solo" as we call it. I don't think that needs much explanation. You have an online game but you treat it like a single-player game. It is a bit like toddlers in the sand box playing side by side but not really interacting except the occasional quarrel because one has a favorite toy which the other wants. Well, in my case there is not even the quarrel. I just move away and play somewhere else. I always played on the least populated servers, and I still do (except for the pure PvP servers, which I would not even try to play on).

***

Some of the wild-eyed futurists (like Ray Kurzweil) imagine a near future – the lifetime of most of us – where you can upload your personality to a computer, or the Internet. Then after your body dies, you live on as a ghost in the machine. You cannot touch the real world directly, although you can still see it through webcams etc, but you can manifest in virtual worlds just as much a person as the living people who visit the place. Possibly more at home than them. Virtual worlds will be more and more common as meeting places, rather than traveling physically all around the globe. The living, the dead and the artificial intelligences will all meet on the same plane of reality and socialize, as well as do business.

It is a beautiful dream, and like the rest of them it depends on nanotechnology that cannot be distinguished from magic. While I believe computers will grow more and more powerful for another human generation yet (unless we destroy ourselves with our cool scientific tools), the laws of physic are unlikely to budge. Thus, nanotech will remain a dream, much like the fountain of youth. Or perhaps more like making gold from lead: Yes, it is possible, but it can only be done in extremely small quantities at an astronomical price in huge, advanced equipment. So there will no doubt be made nanomachines, but they will be few and not able to do more than symbolic work, like grouping up to form nano- sized letters or a corporate logo or something. And then the whole thing will be shelved. No nanobots permeating our bloodstream, much less our brain.

What is possible, however, is software agents that learn. I can easily see a personal computer storing every action you do with it, and every action you do on the Internet (although this would certainly require better software security than today, and I doubt people would trust all these data to Microsoft). After observing you for a year or two, the agent should be able to emulate you to a shocking degree. It will make the same decisions you do, use the same phrases. You can sit back and let your agent chat with people you know and they won't notice. Of course, that could be because it's actually their electronic agents chatting with your electronic agent ...

I can see after years and years of this symbiosis, that the agent might be better able to handle your estate than your heirs would be, once you pass on and leave your mortal coils. It might be able to play your online game characters, answer your phone with your voice probably, and even write a passable online journal when it sees you are lagging behind ...

But it won't be you. It won't be me.