eliza

since i’ve been quarantined, i started and finished playing this game called “eliza”. in short, it’s a visual novel game about a young woman navigating life after creating what is now one of the most popular counseling services. the kicker, though, is that it’s an AI. not a human. not humans connecting with each other. but an AI with humans serving as proxies, deliverers of information, instead of the other way around.

in my time, i’ve experienced a lot of different ways to receive therapy. cognitive behavioral. electric pulses via my ear lobes. i’ve been affected by depression and anxiety and suicidal ideation for a long, long time. i haven’t yet, however, tried one of those chat boxes. thanks to my edumacation in the sciences of computers and cognition, i already knew about the ELIZA chat box from ages ago. but that’s about it. i just knew it existed but didn’t feel particularly intrigued by it or its inner machinations.

so i started playing this game, right? it’s weird. the protaganist’s name is evelyn and she has such a real, calming presence felt through the screen. she’s a (former, by the time this story is told) programmer in seattle, where i’m from. the game incorporates a lot of real-life seattle staples like the light rail, coffee shops, and areas the characters talk about. it was a little surreal playing it because it felt real.

i don’t want to give away any more details about the game in case you want to play it but i do want to talk about what it made me think about. it made me think about what kind of role i play as a software engineer on a social media/news platform, one of many harbingers of memes and viral moments. the circumstances are different by nature but i think there are similarities with respect to the service and its impact on other people. i think many people use the platform i work on as a way to connect and heal with other people that share interests and values. i think about what i would choose if i were facing a decision that would directly impact the people that use the service and whether it would help or harm them as they make decisions about how to live their lives. i think about if i have already experienced some of those moments. i’m not sure.

when thinking about these choices, it makes me really consider how people in positions of power have the ability and sometimes do take advantage of consumers’ trust in order to profit. it can be quite insidious. ads. marketing. curating feeds. limitation of engagement. censoring of topics. though some of these features were born out of good intentions (filtering spam, reporting misconduct and illegal, disgusting content), i sometimes think about the flip side where people are wrongly banned/suspended. i think about how some people have no actions taken against them at all because of who they are. it is a hard thought to face – that i, somewhere downstream, am contributing to that experience by being an engineer. a literal person that pushes code to data centers, making these options available. the silencing and the amplification of voices. it makes me think about a lot of things, as you can see.

anyway. this game is a beautiful experience and i think you should check it out. even if you’re a person that “isn’t into video games”, i think everyone would be able to enjoy this masterpiece. video games are such a high form of art and i feel like it gets a bad rep because someone like 20 years ago thought that shooting games were more likely to make you violent. i do not know that to be true. i also believe that people fail to realize that there is a world of video games that exist beyond the call of duty franchise, haha. there are games for everyone! puzzle games, strategy games, adventure games, music games, and, like eliza, visual novel-like games. video games represent culminations of storytelling, graphics, design, and music. all these mediums in which artists flourish and are recognized for yet i do believe that people sometimes fail to acknowledge game designers as artists too. and i’m not saying that game designers are artists in their own way. i am saying that they are simply artists that make art fun and, most importantly, engaging. video games can challenge you in ways that perhaps looking at still lifes can’t. i’m not saying don’t go to a museum (because you should, at some point, if you can), i am just saying give it a chance. you never know what you’ll come out of it with.