Behaviours and Ethics Report – Provocations
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Introduction
The education of a young person starting secondary school in 2011 will have to stand them in good stead for the next 60 years. With this in mind, Robots and Avatars has been looking at how young people will work and play with new representational forms of themselves and others in the next 10 to 15 years. Through a series of debates and events we have been speculating what that future may be like and asking how the education system can evolve to respond to the changes we will face in our digital futures? These questions stem from body>data>space’s previous work which has explored our evolving virtual and physical identity over the past 20 years.
Between June and November 2010, Robots and Avatars hosted a series of Lunch Debates which brought together a diverse and specialised group of professionals and experts to deepen the research and further the conversation around the Robots and Avatars programme. The Lunch Debates asked, ‘What sort of world are we educating our young people for?’ and are designed to help extend the understanding of what young people’s needs are for the future world of work, given that many of the jobs they will do have not yet been invented. The debates also envision the skill-sets, aptitudes, resources and methodologies that will be required by today’s young people who will be at work from 2020 onwards.
The group was formed of a diverse pool of experts from a variety of backgrounds, including academics, educationalists, creative practitioners, industry professionals and artists. The Behaviours and Ethics Lunch Debate was attended by Steve Boxer (Games Expert/Journalist), Ron Edwards (Ambient Performance), Michael Magruder (Artist and Researcher, King’s College Visulisation Lab), Toby Coffey (Lead Digital Creative, National Theatre, London), Professor Anna Craft (University of Exeter and The Open University), Oliver Gingrich (Musion), Luke Hudson Powell (Designer), Ash Nehru (UVA) and Professor Mike Stubbs (Director, FACT, Liverpool). The debate was moderated by Ghislaine Boddington (Creative Director, body>data>space) and Benedict Arora (NESTA, Programme Director, Education).
The debate began with Ghislaine Boddington outlining some key areas for the group to consider in the context of an increasingly fluid future which will see young people needing to be more self reliant, entrepreneurial and dynamic – particularly in their working lives. The keywords were split into two categories:
Behaviours – Roles and behaviours in virtual / physical blended space:
Collaborative and interactive methods, communication, orientation, mobility, codes of behaviour, gestural and emotional interfaces, tele-presence, tele-intuition, intimacy, sociality, diversity and interculturalism, business/work space, innovation space, free agency/activism, group belonging, fragmentation, flame wars, realism, immersion.
Ethics – Ethics and Morals in virtual / physical blended space:
Multi-identity, trust and credibility, identity fraud, identity maintenance, litigation, influence exertion, data security, politics and activism, social innovation, borders, value judgments, altruism, power dynamics, addiction, vulnerability.
These keyword were placed in the middle to enable and guide the discussion. The group then went on to hear four provocations on Telepresence, Gaming, Avatars and Virtual Training Worlds which provided practical examples and future visions and to inform the discussion and debate.
Provocation 1- Ghislaine Boddington – Telepresence
“Collective collaboration is absolutely key in this debate…however we still have a long way to go with regards to the acceptance of group and collective work practice.”
Ghislaine Boddington, Creative Director body>data>space
the Immersive Cocoon, a walk-in virtual-reality pod being developed by NAU
The first provocation was given by Ghislaine Boddington who explored behaviours and ethics within telepresence environments. Boddington contextualised telepresence as an evolution, as opposed to substitution, of your real life identity saying that telepresence can “create intimacy and build trust as it encourages an evolving expression of yourself and others”. She emphasised that rather than replace live presence, we can extend and enhance it through telematic interactions.
Telepresence also gives us new ways to explore intimacy and trust. Boddigton suggested that it challenges our “uptight presence”, as we get used to being infront of a camera and “being live – out there all the time” we will develop skills in tele-intution . For Boddington it is also important to recognise the role the gaze plays in creating intimacy and trust, as is demonstrated by the “vis a vis” (face to face) nature of tools such as Skype or Apple’s Facetime. With regards to young people, she explained that “it is not going to be a problem for future generations,” given that they are increasingly and habitually communicating using telepresence.
Highlighting the evolution of community sharing, knowledge transfer and group creation processes as a result of wider access to telepresence, through the use of tools such as Skype, Boddington emphasised that we should recognise the opportunities to use telepresence in a ‘local to local’ situation (school to school, youth centre to youth centre, business to business). This use of telepresence can help us to “bridge distance, reduce our carbon footprint, extend cultural understanding and trust, re-examine identity and presence enhance our senses” .
Provocation 2 – Steve Boxer – Gaming
“When examining behaviors and ethics from a gaming perspective…there is in particular one problem…a lot of people play games to actually abandon their ordinary ethical codes”
Steve Boxer, Games Expert
Steve Boxer began by refuting the traditional moral approach towards gaming, which, despite the lack of research into the effects of games on young people, often suggests that they will replicate the things they experience in games in real life. He emphasized that games provide ‘safe spaces’ to operate in and explained that it can be beneficial for young people to experiment and play in these spaces where the normal social norms, such as with gender, sexuality, body image don’t apply in the same ways. As a result allowing young people the opportunity to explore these issues with a freedom that they might find difficult to experience in real social situations.
“Video games allow you to behave like you would never behave in real life.”
Steve Boxer, Games Expert
Clearly not all video games are suitable for young people and Boxer comprehensively outlined the mechanisms put in place, such as age ratings and parental lockout, which allow parents to have control over their children’s privacy online. Raising a laugh in the room, Boxer also mentioned that it is most often young people themselves who know how to use so called parental controls. As such he touched on one of the ongoing themes of the debate – how it might be possible to bring young people into the decision making process regarding trust and privacy online as opposed to trying to lock them out?
One of the key questions in this discussion is how online connectivity through platforms such as Xbox Live and Playstation Network, which have allowed radical new forms of game play and interactivity, can be made both safe and productive for young people?
Multiplayer Gaming
World of Warcraft
Boxer then went on to talk about online multiplayer gaming and how this form of play is changing the ethical and behavioural landscape for young people. He drew attention to the pleasure of playing games against humans rather than against ‘AI’ and how suggested MMO’s (Massively Multiplayer Online Games) have fundamentally changed the gaming landscape, as they allow radical new forms of connectivity, socialiability, scalability and learning in real-time. They also allow young people to forge new identities for themselves which Boxer sees as liberating although he was keen to point out the challenges that multi identity brings with it. For example, there was outrage amongst the World of Warcarft community in July 20101 when Blizzard, who make the game, were forced to do a u-turn after trying to implement Real ID’s, which displayed users real names in message boards as opposed to their in-game names.
Obsessive Play
Boxer highlighted some of the issues around obsessive play sighting the shocking example of a baby that had died in Korea because the parents had become obsessed with raising their virtual baby instead . In the context of this example he asked whether “ that is a reflection of the game or of the players personality?” Despite the group favouring the latter and understanding this tragic case as an exception rather than the rule, obsessive play remains an important and complex issue when thinking about young people and gaming.
Games and Ethical Dilemmas
Boxer outlined games which not only deal with ethical dilemmas, but in fact hinge on them. In the game Heavy Rain the player is regularly involved in dilemmas which ask you to question your own ethics in relation to the game. For example, at one stage in the game you have been kidnapped and are asked “whether you should kill or incapacitate your kidnapper?”. Not only do these sorts of dilemmas raise moral questions but they also take you deep into the emotional life of the character further implicating ethics. Boxer also cited the game Global Conflict Palestine , which explores the Israeli Palestinian conflict, by posing ethical questions to players, whilst at the same time educating them about real world issues.
Provocation 3 – Michael Takeo Magruder – Virtual Worlds
Artist and researcher Michel Takeo Magruder began by surveying the developments in virtual world technology over the last ten years explaining that it has moved from being an “exotic specialisation” to environments such as Second Life, which have several million users interacting within a virtual environment with no game objective. Magruder highlighted the repurposing of a game-like environment such as Second Life into a social space as a key development for virtual worlds.
Magrugder then went onto reference gaming in relation to young people and the use of avatars in these environments. He explained that the use of avatars is embedded into the core of all the mainstream consoles (PS3, Wii, Xbox) and that for young people this forms part of their everyday. He highlighted issues around “trust and accountability” as some key areas for concern explaining that whilst “free accessibility is supremely important” security also needs to be taken into account and that “we have to find the right balance”. He gave the example of Club Penguin an online game in which 12 million young people “run around in penguin form, socialising and playing”. Magruder feels that for his 9 year old daughter this is a valuable space for her to socialise in without leaving home but he also shared some of the issues he has had to deal with. For example, his daughters friend had requested to use her password and username to log onto the game himself. This had lead Magruder to have a conversation with his daughter about the nature of her identity online, explaining that it was not only her identity that was at stake but also his, since he pays for the service using his credit card.
Magruder was also keen to suggest that we look to find “future solutions for future generations” and not get too stuck in the current paradigms, saying that “the issues we face today are not necessarily the things that future generations will face” and going on to emphasise that “the systems we are making now might not be applicable or even desirable for them”. He ended by explaining that “we have to prepare them as best as we can but also remember that our problems are not [necessarily] going to be their problems”. Asking what we can do now to help young people Magrugder suggested that it is perhaps more important to have “the right dialogues [with young people], rather than being prescriptive because the interface with technology is always changing”.
Provocation 4 – Ron Edwards – Enterprise Virtual Worlds
The Forterra Virtual World Platform for Medicine and Health (Credit: Ambient Performance)
Next to speak was Ron Edwards, CEO of Ambient Performance, who create and facilitate the use of virtual worlds in enterprise and training scenarios. Edwards began by outlining some of the questions he and his team have to ask in relation to the creation of virtual worlds: What is it about these environments that make them effective for decision making under stress? How are you going to appear in a virtual world? Is it okay to let people experiment with their identity in a virtual training world?
Edwards explained that through his work and after “countless hours in virtual training worlds” he has experienced many instances of behaviours that have an affect emotionally. He suggested that even though virtual worlds are just digital pixels that there are very real consequences that come out of the interactions in these environments. For example when another avatar comes too close to your avatar you might feel uncomfortable in the same way that you do in the real world. Another example related to disaster management and a virtual training world where a power station gets flooded and the emergency response team have to decide whether to shut off power to hospitals or not.
Edwards then went on to talk about inappropriate behaviour in virtual worlds by giving the example of how during one training session, a participant decided to get into a virtual vehicle and run over his fellow employees. Whilst Edwards felt that this action was completely unsuitable he explained that this was because the freedom was there to do it and echoed other provocateurs by saying that, “you don’t want to be too controlling” and instead have to find the right balance between freedom and restriction to make the virtual world operate effectively. He added that in many corporate environments there is often a request for high degrees of control.
Edwards also talked about the growing use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in virtual worlds. For example, AI was used in a virtual world that Ambient Performance developed for the Highways Agency in order to help them practice which lanes to close in order to regulate traffic. He ended by explaining that within virtual worlds, “you get a far more immersivity and hence emotional reactions” than you do in real world simulated training scenarios and that an essential part of his work is asking “what are the ethical considerations for people making decisions in these worlds?”
Read – Behaviours and Ethics – The Group Debate
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