The Uncanny Valley

At last I happened to watch movie Tintin last to last week. As it was major venture from two "biggies" of Hollywood, Steven Spielberg & Peter Jackson, I was already prejudiced with the wellness and greatness of movie. Ultimately I experienced the same feeling which is always there with Speilbergs' movies : disappointment. No.. No before you go for some misunderstood meaning, I'll clear myself. Tintin as a movie is amazingly fun and enjoyable. It's definitive Speilberg adventure and must watch. But again I was compelled to think that we as a audiences are not fit enough to appreciate it.

We Indian people as audiences had developed very careless approach of watching the movie. For people who use to see bollywood, its just process of watching and nothing else. And it works fine for most bollywood " senseless" movies and also with some summer Hollwood blockblusters. But sometimes it is required to get to know the source upon which movie is based so that it can be put to proper context and views and also movie can be appreciated in its right manner. I had experience of same when people just expected "War of the worlds" to be some kind of superhero flick or second part of Independence Day without having any knowledge of H. G. Wells and its classic sci-fi novel with same name on which movie was based. Even I had not read it then, but before going for some criticism, I found it, read it, and than again I watched movie. ( in fact after that I saw it too many times ). And believe me it was brilliant and faithful adaptation. Not the same case here with Tintin but still I heard some people buzzing with negative views. Who is going to make them understand that in movie there are so many deft touches which were incorporated with ease that you as a audience just failed to understand it and enjoy it. For example a classic opening credit which is pure homage to the Tintin comics and its creator Herge. I can write whole new blog on this but right now I dont want to go in that direction as the topic of the blog is entirely different. Though it is some how connected with Tintin movie. Tintin was filmed with very lifelike animation by Mo-cap technique and with this surfaced the well-known problem of "The Uncanny Valley".

Now if you feel like more attached, emotionally, to animation movies which are more close to comic or surrealistic representation of characters rather than absolutely real and life like animations than you are nothing but following the principle of "The Uncanny Valley".In short, if you prefer movies such as The ice age, Kungfu Panda, Up, WALL-E etc. over Beowulf, The polar express or final fantasy series, than its nothing but work of "Uncanny Valley". This principle which was first termed by robotics professor Masahiro Mori states that in terms of AI or robots or animations we are more akeen to attach ourselves as the animations moves towards reality. As animations closes its gap towards becoming real, we like it more. But only up to the point or say, peek point. Aftet that, even though animations are absolutely real, we feel revulsion towards them hindering the ability to close the gap to attach ourselves emotionally. Once this curve move away from reality, we begin to like them again. This gap is called "Uncanny Valley". 

There have been many theories proposed responsible for such kind of cognitive behavior ranging from mortality salience to evolution to sexual preferences. Anyhow I'm not going to much detail about them as you can have better idea from other internet resources. Main purpose of writing this blog is to introduce the idea of "Uncanny Valley" to those who don't know this principle so as next time when you watch animation movie which has far greater resembles to real people and still somehow you could not able to connect to them than you perfectly know the reason why.

Last note: "Uncanny Valley" or not, Tintin is far more entertaining movie than average flick. Just give it a chance and fall in love of old adventurism.

OGD-Obsessive Gaming Disorder

Obsessive Gaming Disorder – I read these words somewhere on the online gaming magazine some times back and I immediately liked them (& make an entry in my vocabulary journal). I seriously believe that these three words (OGD) themselves can so profoundly and strongly represent and define entire hard core gaming community, comprises of fanatic gamers like me, in a way that no other lengthy introduction is required. OGD is not a word but identity. And I am sure that all the patients suffering from this disease will take proud of it.

First of all, I’m not talking about only gaming here (casual gaming & occasional gaming is no symptom of it, so if you are like that, be happy and go marry with your usual ordinary life). I’m talking about people who eat, sleep (actually not sleep), drink and have sex with gaming (OK, last one is far too imaginative).Point is you just don’t play games; you live games, than you most probably suffering from OGD.

Why one becomes obsessive about something? (I don’t want to go in details about effect of chemical composition Serotonin on our mind which is prime suspect for obsessive behavior). I believe its gradual process from first impression to liking, enjoying, contemplating, passionate liking and obsession, just like Love (People say that love is obsessive, I prefer the other way, if it’s obsessive, it must be Love)

I still remember my first divine touch with gaming medium when I was a child, traveling to north India with my family and only attraction for me was to have a handheld electronic device from Delhi marketplace which allowed me to have singular gaming experience. The idea of moving something on the black & white pixilated screen with a press of a button was so much fascinating to me at that time. I had bought one with maximum buttons on the panel (four: two on each sides excluding “start” button). I still remember the premise of the game where a bird shooter had to shoot as many goose as possible coming from four different directions (top-left, bottom-left, top-right, bottom-right). You just had to press appropriate button to shoot and kill in particular direction with precise timing. If 3 gooses escaped, it’s game over. Thing is it was so much difficult to kill 1000 gooses (that was my target at that time) as after crossing the score of 600 to 700, you had to work so fast that it looked impossible to reach 1000 without having an alien hands with four thumbs and a brain induced with super power chip, working and acting and responding with teraflops of calculations per seconds (I still remember, my high score was 950).

Then I came in touch with retro gaming legends and similar sprit-ed games like Mario, Contra, Pac-man, Bomberman, Space invaders, and lot others, eating away my summer vacations like piranhas eating their prey. Then came period of time, during start of my secondary education, when I happened to shy away from two of my likings: comics and games. These were mere hobbies that time, still not converted to passion. Here I should make clear the difference between hobby and passion. I have a very simple idea for testing: What you do in free time is hobby and for what you free the time from your busy life is passion. So I had to move away from my gaming so as I could satisfy the expectations of the surrounding to be grown up, to rake higher up in the rank, to concentrate on study, to get selected in good carrier and thereby making bright future. Now looking back, I can do nothing but laugh at the irony of my life as after following so called “ideal-path-to-success”, after getting myself better and better over others’ expectations, getting into the grooves of set carrier and social status and earning hefty amount of money, what I’m doing to satisfy my urge of happiness: Gaming and reading Comics (Life is really a circle).

After completing my secondary and higher secondary education, There came a point where my ideal study-and-make-bright-carrier route allowed me to get myself admitted to well known collage with computer engineering as major. Anyhow, I liked the idea of having personal computer just because of that. My parents bought me new PC with same notions as every parents in the world would have when they buy personal computers for their child for first time like PC would help to learn and make study smother, somehow it makes child more intellectual and clever. To me, it’s absolutely wrong notion (somehow I believe that parents also know this). I can firmly say that PC is going to be used up to or more than 90% for gaming, multimedia, movies and for lot other things rather than study for boys (I can not say the same for girls as I believe girls are far more sincere and studious in that regard and also I’m not having demographic data for that part).

I got PC in the year of 2002. Four years before i.e. 1998, the newly found corporation called Valve by two former Microsoft employee (Gabe Newell & Mike Harrington) had released it’s first product which was going to revitalize and direct FPS gaming to new heights and branded me with so deep impression of gaming that I could not make myself free from web of computer gaming whole of my life. That product is called Half-life and that was the first game which I played with my new PC. I never heard the game’s popularity before. I just picked up and played by impulse of playing something horrible and weird. I always thought of how I can get forward and what to expect next in Half-life during whole of my days: during lectures, playground, at collage, everywhere. Next gaming session would not satiate my hunger but add fuel to it for more play (to this day).                       

From than on, I just played on, never looked back. Gradually but certainly my passion turns into addiction and than an obsession. I tried to play every genre (TPS, Action-adventure, RPG, Hack & slash). Even I made a list of all the played games till date (don’t know why someone is interested in it except me). I had upgraded my system (along with higher end GPUs) thrice so that it is capable of playing all games there in the market with all the glory (& gory) details. I can not muster enough time to go home and play like old days as I’m working in different city and I deliberately avoided taking my Gaming rig with me with fear that I may loose my grip completely over reality and real life problems. But still I bought whatever new game in the market without contemplating how I’m going to play and finish it. And whenever I’m away from playing games, I read about games, think about games, want to know about gaming technologies, collect games and lot more. Games just stop being portal to lose myself in another world; it just becomes my world blurring the line between real and surreal.

 I don’t know why I’m writing all this stuff, why somebody really wants to read about my obsessive gaming journey. But may be I need a kind of valve to let my emotions and feelings out to something, same as Valve has done to me with Half-life years ago. At least games give me worlds and environments which based on some concrete values and rules. In games, I can prove myself worthy and can get rewards for my values and character development (it’s not as random and undependable as real world). May be games give me more freedom to explore and imagine (now I have idea why people get addicted to drugs). May be games give me courage to face my fears and live up to expectations. May be games give me notions that actions and traits matters more than your physical appearance (that’s why I like FPS more). In short, I love to be obsessed with computer gaming, I love to save the world again & again & again.

“A question that sometimes drives me hazy: am I or are the others crazy?” – Einstein.

More Reads :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_addiction

http://addictions.about.com/od/videogameaddiction/f/is_video_game_addiction_real.htm

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2007/11/12/what-is-the-truth-about-gaming-addiction/

Books:

Game Addiction: The experience and the Effects by Neils Clark and P. Scott

If your ethical model defeats you........

“If your ethical model defeats you, change the model “– DBC Pierre in “Lights out in wonderland “

Moral values, ethical choices, good vs. evil, black or white – these all are topics of deep discussion and vary from person to person depending on their own perspective and views.  Still sometimes it drives me crazy that what should be the ideal structure to believe in. May be there is no ideal model of values as it has been taught to us as a child.

I happened to come in contact of a novel by DBC Pierre, titled “Lights out in Wonderland “. I’m an impulse buyer. As I gone through beautifully bleak and weird cover graphics and cryptic, allegorical excerpts, my impulse to read this novel goes sky high and I bought it. It’s about a guy who decides to cut short his life but before that he wants to indulge in decadence. Yes, novel is all about decadence in its purest form. (Still I went through few chapters only :). It raises so many questions about the validity of values and ethical model. Why we are so much rigid in accepting any new perspective? Why we strictly stick to model where everything we want to be divided into black and white only? Why we really don’t have any freedom of choice to live on our own way and make decisions on our own?  

In India (yes, I deliberately opt for India and also some “so called” traditional stats like Gujarat), idea of these moral values and ethical structure is so forcefully imbued into mind of a child so that as one grows up, this entire model cemented it’s place with so much ferocity that it becomes indestructible and rock-solid. And when time comes to test it against real world scenarios, it will attribute, person having it, with zeal of resistance and rigidity. It becomes so much difficult for the person to embrace the change that he/she outright rejects it without any proper notion and reason (even though change is good one). I believe that with too many social interactions we are losing individualism. We are losing right to live on our own notions and hence for our own happiness. Please bear in mind that I’m not indicating to severe social ties and relationships (in fact they are the most beautiful things that can happen to you in this hopeless era). It’s about choosing what you feel right without any interruptions. It’s about getting free reign to take decisions for your own life(of course after maturity) .It’s about constructing your own model and changing it whenever you feel right as per basis on your lifetime learning experience(good or bad, whatever).

If you really want to have a feel of choices and its consequences, you should opt to play good RPGs (Role Play Games).Even though most games provide you very broad line choices between good and evil, sometimes they really test you with moral choice which is falling into dark grey shade. One such incident I can remember is with Fallout 3 (my most favorite post-apocalyptic game with retro-futuristic environment).

There is one quest in the game where you caught between struggles of two extreme socially distanced groups. One is composed of civilized and well mannered people who had maintained there high living standards (even in the nuclear desolate world), residing in Tenpenny tower (a high rise structure still intact in the city).Other one is composed of  radiation infected and mutated ugly people who are living with very low life approach, called “Ghouls”. As you can expect that this big social chasm leads to conflicts between the two and the later one wants to take control of tower which represents dominance of richer life over others, while the former one wants to defend it and not to share their wealth with low lives as they dare to maintain their values intact in this devastated world. Now you had to take side and take moral decision to support one of them. Leader of the “Ghouls” (the mutated people) asks you to open secret passage in the tower so as entire of his army can ambush and capture the tower. On the other hand protector of the tower gives you the assignment to assassinate leader of the “Ghouls” to end the conflict and rebel. (There is one peaceful solution also where you can avoid the violence la “Mahatma Gandhi” style. If you had developed your speech skill proficiently, you can convince both sided to live together in unity. That’s where RPG really shines J ) . First I decided to help the ugly Ghouls as I sympathized with them on living a better life. But as soon as I opened the gates for them my decision proved flawed to me as ghoul army just destroyed everything in the tower and killed and slashed all the people in the tower, bringing down the civilization to their own low, savage level. So I decided to load previous save game and this time I supported the residents of Tenpenny Tower by executing the Ghoul leader with slipping a live grenade in his pocket while he was sleeping. But again I felt betrayed by my moral decision as just because ghouls are ugly and savant didn’t mean to end their rights to lead good life.

What if this is the real world scenario (not just the game) where any decision you make will have deep percussion s on the various aspects and lives of others and you can not reverse it. In Joker’s words “you changed it everything forever.“ (In The Dark Knight to Batman). One thing is for sure: You can not make everybody happy. And that’s why we better not strongly stick to our ethical values and give some space to ourselves as well as others to experiment and hence learn from it.

There is no right, there is no wrong there are only consequences.