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MIT's BeeMe Giant Social Experiment Puts a Human Under Internet Control (newatlas.com) 59

Posted by msmash from the grand-social-experiment dept.
This Halloween scientists at MIT's Media Lab are embarking on a massive social experiment. From a report: Called BeeMe, the project will let internet users control a real human actor, suggesting, and collectively voting on, this person's every action. New Atlas reached out to Niccolo Pescetelli, one of the creators behind the experiment, to find out exactly what is about to happen. BeeMe is an immersive interactive game that will kick off at 11 pm US EST on Halloween night. Users will be able to participate by logging into the BeeMe website from which they will be able to suggest, and vote on, actions that direct an actor in real life. A live video stream on the website will allow users to see what the actor sees. On a superficial level BeeMe is a fun Halloween game, with a narrative telling the story of an evil artificial intelligence that has been accidentally released online. Users must collectively coordinate their efforts to direct the human actor to defeat this nefarious AI.
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MIT's BeeMe Giant Social Experiment Puts a Human Under Internet Control

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  • Sounds like a B movie! (Score:3)

    by Joe_Dragon ( 2206452 ) on Wednesday October 31, 2018 @11:48AM (#57568963)

    Sounds like a B movie!

    • Sounds like a B movie!

      That depends on the vote, but a B movie would go something like:
      -superglue shoe on head
      -pull down pants
      -put sharpie in butt
      -stalk nicholas cage

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by dgatwood ( 11270 )

        Sounds like a B movie!

        That depends on the vote, but a B movie would go something like: -superglue shoe on head -pull down pants -put sharpie in butt -stalk nicholas cage

        I was thinking something similar, but I have far less faith in humanity on the Internet than you do, so I would expect the experiment to end with a criminal conviction within the first day, e.g.

        23:00 - Go to a 7-11.
        23:15 - Buy Twinkies and a bottle of Coke.
        23:18 - Go home.
        23:33 - Pick up your drill and high-speed wood bits.
        23:34 - Go to the school playground across the street.
        23:36 - Drill a hole through that tree just below waist level, using your largest bit.
        23:38 - Go home.
        ...
        00:15 - Go to sleep.

      • Yeah people aren't going to be interested in following some sort of story, they're going to try to get the guy to do things that they think are funny or humiliating for him. Within the first 5 minutes they're going to tell him to suck his own dick and try to fight someone.

    • Sounds like a B movie!

      Actually, sounds more like 2009's Gamer [imdb.com]:

      In a future mind-controlling game, death row convicts are forced to battle in a 'Doom'-type environment. Convict Kable, controlled by Simon, a skilled teenage gamer, must survive thirty sessions in order to be set free. Or won't he?

      I liked that the villain in that movie was basically Mark Zuckerberg, played by the guy who was Dexter. It was fairly shlockish, but I think it would probably been seen in a much better light if it were to come out now [avclub.com], with us being on the

    • More like a /b/ movie, if you get my drift.

  • MIT Media Lab (Score:5, Funny)

    by 110010001000 ( 697113 ) on Wednesday October 31, 2018 @11:48AM (#57568967) Homepage Journal
    MIT Media Lab: wasting money and technology since 1985.

  • inb4 4chan (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Lets show how Slashdot can be worse.

  • Oh lord (Score:5, Funny)

    by Bobrick ( 5220289 ) on Wednesday October 31, 2018 @11:51AM (#57568993)
    This will go well, I'm sure! How long before he's made to masturbate while doing Seig Heil's?

  • Rule 34 (Score:2)

    by PPH ( 736903 )

    --

  • 100% Vote (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Have they never been anywhere on the net? Guarantee this will go badly.

    "Piss and shit in to a jar, mix it, then drink it. Now, rub your genitals on the glass and punch yourself in the face."

  • Basically Twitch Plays Real Life?
    Wiki [wikipedia.org]

  • But can I have it my way? (Score:5, Informative)

    by Nkwe ( 604125 ) on Wednesday October 31, 2018 @12:08PM (#57569115)
    It's been done: Subservient Chicken [wikipedia.org]

  • They are going to present a number of choices you can make because if they didn't, this would end up with the guy, drawing on a Hitler mustache, sprinting around buck naked chasing dogs at the local park. I know how Internet thinks and it's lowbrow pranksterism knows no bounds. Alternatively, the dog park is going to be a lot more lively today. ;)

  • So basically, it's "trips tells me what to do to my cat" or "dubs names my doggo".
    What can possibly go wrong..

  • OMFG, were these people born yesterday? When the 4chan (and 4chan-esque crowd) gets wind of this, they'll game the hell out of it, and either humiliate whoever it is to the point where they either quit or commit suicide -- assuming that is they don't trick whoever it is into suicide. Or they'll get them to commit a crime. Or ruin their life somehow. Worst. Idea. Ever.

    "Reverse RActing" (if you're familiar with The Diamond Age, that is)

    • That's the experiment: will there be more griefers or good-hearted people? My money is on the griefers; they're better organized!
      • Yeah. :-/
        'BeeMe' will end up being '/b/Me'. :-/
      • Good hearted folks aren't up at 11 PM US Eastern Halloween night playing internet experiments. Well, not very many at least. We hope the Chinese get in on it
        • You're right, they're not. The Blackpilled crowd, the misanthropes, the massively butthurt foreveralone uggos who have been rejected so many times that they've become massive misogynists, the habitual trolls, wannabe anarchists, pedophiles, and outright internet criminals, are online at 11PM Eastern Time, and they'll be the ones turning this into an absolute horror show of a disaster.
      • One competent troll is worth a thousand kind-hearted plebs.
  • Nothing defeats AI like putting humans under Internet control.

  • He will be forced to have his name legally changed to Boaty McBoatface, rob a bank, snort coke in front of a police station, strip all his clothes off and do the macarena endlessly until he's arrested.

  • Seems to be pretty much entirely lost to time now but back around 2007 there was a site that would let you watch and control people by voting on actions.
    Of course this was 2007 and LTE didn't exist yet but it was live streamed over the existing 3G at the time, it worked remarkably well.

    Somehow there doesn't appear to be any videos of the site in operation but it was pretty fun.

    It didn't have any goals or anything tho they just wandered around messing with people.

    BeeMe appears like it will be a story driven

  • communications have been disabled. we must be at war. 502 Bad Gateway

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