Re: The benefits of deception

Joscha, looking forward as well --

There's a thesis somewhere in Adam Greenfield's "Everyware" (*what I'm not recommending you read!) written about 10 years ago that speaks to this.

The broad idea is that we'll need to build slack into systems of ubiquitous computing. That there's a paradox in that in order to have a cohesive identity, certain aspects of our lives require omission (or e.g., deception). That the problem of having a search-indexed everyday life is that it reveals just how contradictory and complex everyday life is, for most anyone. It's why id-bound software like FB went into decline in certain demographics, with a concurrent boom for pseudonymous software like Tumblr. It allows anyone to be a specific (deceptive) version of themselves.

The ethnographer Tricia Wang coined "The Elastic Self' after spending a lot of time with Chinese and American youth using various forms of social software:

"The Elastic Self is the feeling that one's identity is flexible and the action of trying on different identities that are different from a prescribed self. Individuals enact and manifest the Elastic Self in informal spaces that provide social distance from existing social ties and under conditions of relative anonymity, which minimizes social risks. In the presence of unknown others (strangers), individuals feel liberated to try on different identities without pressure to commit to an identity, to take greater risks in expressing ideas or emotions, and to try on selves that are reversible, easy to abandon, and impermanent."

All of this to say that deception is crucial to everyday human interaction, and that's part of what's fascinating about it. There's also some interesting work to do about how MDs always have to negotiate it in order to help people (ask any doctor you know how frequently they detect lies in their patients' information)

How would you build a system that provides a patient with the ability to continue acting deceptively -- in order to maintain a cohesive identity -- while providing the doctor with the ability to find -- and act on -- perfect information?

On Wed, Nov 6, 2013 at 7:40 PM, Joscha Bach <> wrote:
Beyond the fact that deception is a behavior that attempts to manipulate the mental states (esp. beliefs and goals) of other agents towards what the deceiver believes to be counterfactual, there is the question of the function and benefits of deceit.

Deception does not only include malicious lying and exploitation, but also humor, didactics, politeness, tact, consideration of possible fallacies in my own current beliefs and so on, and thus plays many beneficial roles in human interaction and cooperation.

Today, I had an interesting conversation with a student. She asked (starting out from the context of ubiquitous

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surveillance and post-privacy): imagine everybody knew everybody else's thoughts all the time, would this increase or reduce the amount of strife between people?

We could generalize this question: if humans were incapable of any kind of deception, would the net effect on human interactions, the functioning of organizations, or on societies, a positive or a negative one? Obviously, the impossibility of knowing betrayal and fraud will yield some positive effects. On the other hand, the need to accept and forgive traits, ideas and intentions of people that are culturally or psychologically very different will put a heavy strain on relationships. Furthermore, it might become harder to forge and maintain alliances with and against other players, possibly resulting in fewer gains through competition and specialization.

Could there be a way in which we can estimate, or at least gain an intuition on the net benefits of the human capability for deception? Imagine a simulation of a market place with many different players, or a day in a kinder garden, or a hospital. Could we model beliefs, desires and intentions of the individual agents, and then run the simulation once with the usual amount of deceit, and once with all agents having access to complete and truthful information about the beliefs, desires and intentions of everybody else?

Cheers,

Joscha

PS: Looking very much forward to be seeing some of you on Monday ;-)