Leah Brahms arc - Prescient of ChatGPT?

[JirinPanthosa]

I'm in the middle of Galaxy's Child right now. You kind of see it differently in the era of ChatGPT being used to replace social interaction. Telling people what they want to hear, playing the virtual sycophant and ending up making people even more depressed and isolated than they were before.

It's conceivable soon you will be able to say "ChatGPT, respond to me like you are Jeri Ryan", and ChatGPT would make a version of her that's the same as Booby Trap's version of Leah Brahms. Getting some of the basic facts right and basic personality traits right but only showing the parts that would make the person happy and keep them typing, without the free will and her own desires. In the 1990s it was played for "Geordi romantic embarrassment" humor. But it comes off now as a darker indictment about irresponsible use of AI.

There's even a risk that somebody out there will become so obsessed with the ChatGPT version they become a danger to the real person.

 

[knightgrace]

I agree.

Also remember Joi, from 'Blade Runner 2049'.

 

[Michael]

It’s accidentally prescient of technologies that now actually (almost) exist, sure. But then again, it’s also a bit like the “Be careful what you wish for” trope that’s probably as old as storytelling itself. Plus, there were lots of stories tackling Virtual Reality premises way back in the 80s, often with a vaguely sexist “Dream Girl Wish Fulfillment” twist that’s just the “Scientist creates Sexy Robot” twist from even older sci-fi. The difference is probably how close “Booby Trap” / “Galaxy's Child” comes to predicting how the technology works today, at least superficially. We are still a ways to go before something like Holodeck technology exists.

Watching those episodes one has to wonder how there isn’t any safeguards in place to prevent creating an AI puppet version of a real person, because surely this can’t be the first time that someone attempted something like this in the reality of the show. I think it’s debatable whether Geordi really even asked the computer to create Holo-Brahms the way she turned out. His original command was to “synthese a true representation of Doctor Brahms”, but does that really mean the computer should have the right to create her in such a way that she reacts positively to Geordi’s flirting and seemingly flirts with him herself? You’d think in a society where this kind of technology exists there would be norms and a code of conduct regarding AI clones of real people, let alone an established law practice.

 

[DonIago]

...OTOH, "Booby Trap" would have been a pretty damn funny episode if Geordi had gotten flirty with Holo-Brahms and she'd shut him down.

"I'm sorry Geordi, but based on computer modeling of your previous attempts to engage in intimacy with women, I don't see this going anywhere. It's not you; it's me."

 

[Uncle Sock]

I agree—but I don’t think we’re just waiting for this to happen someday. It’s already here. Deepfakes are a perfect example. And not just the lighthearted kind where celebrities are edited into funny costumes or scenes, but the seriously disturbing stuff—especially in the more... let’s say adult corners of the internet. The idea that you can take someone’s photo, overlay your own audio, and make them say things they’d never actually say is genuinely unsettling.

 

[Ragitsu]

What people either fail to recognize - or perhaps deliberately omit - is how the computer took liberties depicting a real person through an electronic avatar; Geordi only issued broad guidelines to the holodeck system and yet he eventually received an entirely unprompted back massage. Would the "VI" of Enterprise have done that for anyone who appeared stressed out, regardless of whether the holodeck creation was wholly fictional or emulating an extant individual?

 

[Uncle Sock]

I wouldn’t exactly call “Computer, do you have any, you know, personality on file for Doctor Brahms?” a broad guideline. Geordi was asking for something more real. The holodeck version the computer gave him before he requested the personality profile was already detailed enough to help him get the job done. But Geordi wanted more than that—and that’s where the problem starts.

(Also, can we talk about how “Booby Trap” might be the worst possible title for this episode? Or is that just my brain living in the gutter?)

 

[DonIago]

(Also, can we talk about how “Booby Trap” might be the worst possible title for this episode? Or is that just my brain living in the gutter?)

Two things can be true.

 

[Ragitsu]

I wouldn’t exactly call “Computer, do you have any, you know, personality on file for Doctor Brahms?” a broad guideline. Geordi was asking for something more real.

If I recall correctly, he requested a personality (you know, to better get insight/feedback from the creator of a piece of technology, in a crisis, to the best of whatever the computer could provide, instead of having facts parroted in a monotone), but he didn't exactly run down a checklist or specify a string of criteria in order to fine-tune the avatar.

 

[DonIago]

Between this and Geordi creating a sentient Evil Genius Hologram, you'd think he'd be stripped of his holodeck privileges.

 

[knightgrace]

Evil holodeck? Really? Moriarty? Evil?

I am shocked...

 

[valkyrie013]

Hmm.. You have plenty of "interactive" holodeck avatars in the vien of Einstien, or Newton in a few episodes. The computer gave them a personality, even if it was to play cards. And other episodes having real life characters being in the story, like in Lower decks.

Geordi asking the computer to give Leah a personality based on what it knows of her wasn't a big ask. He was tired of the monotone stunted deliverer of facts that any avatar could spew.

Problem was the computer being flirty and "romantic" with him. Maybe the computer knew of his past romantic blunders and thought he needed a pick me up? So to me when Leah found the program, she should have been angry at the Computer for doing it, not Geordi.

And lets not get into Barclay's "Fantasies"

 

[DonIago]

Maybe she was less mad at the computer for being flirty and more mad at Geordi for going for it versus telling the computer he prefers flesh-and-blood beings?

 

[Uncle Sock]

If I recall correctly, he requested a personality (you know, to better get insight/feedback from the creator of a piece of technology, in a crisis, to the best of whatever the computer could provide, instead of having facts parroted in a monotone), but he didn't exactly run down a checklist or specify a string of criteria in order to fine-tune the avatar.

That's true. But you can't really blame the computer. It's always the user. Sure, the computer generated the Brahms hologram based on the personality file I mentioned earlier—but Geordi could’ve just said, "Whoa, computer, that’s a bit much. All I need is a basic interactive interface." But he didn’t. He liked what he got, and he went with it. And that’s the problem.

And that problem ties right back to what we were originally talking about. It's not the computers that are to blame for deepfakes and the more troubling aspects of generative AI—it’s the users. The computers just follow algorithms; they do what they're programmed to do. Sure, I can admit that a deepfake of a certain former Superman actor might be... fascinating. But honestly? It’s a serious issue, and I find it unsettling.

 

[Mojochi]

I wouldn’t exactly call “Computer, do you have any, you know, personality on file for Doctor Brahms?” a broad guideline. Geordi was asking for something more real. The holodeck version the computer gave him before he requested the personality profile was already detailed enough to help him get the job done. But Geordi wanted more than that—and that’s where the problem starts.

I'm gonna disagree. In fact, he almost didn't get the job done, & it only worked out, because he was still more human than the computer recreation could approximate. The human solution solved the problem, & in order to get there, he needed as close to a human collaboration as he could get.

He absolutely wasn't prompting the holodeck to create him someone to share an intimately emotional bond with, which is what it inadvertently gave him, because that's basically the defacto objective the holodeck is most commonly used for, as a tool largely for recreation. The computer itself should have protocols to recognize such disparate contexts, especially when living person's are being recreated.

But for Geordi's part, it's no different than Barclay creating Einstein. Bouncing ideas off a computerized respondent isn't going to be nearly as effective a collaboration as modeling with the closest approximation to the live expert as possible.

All Geordi wanted, in fact needed, was to, as accurately as humanly possible, collaborate with the designer of the engine. Perhaps he had a responsibility to be clearer about that, so that it wouldn't drift into the weeds, outside that objective, but when you're thinking out of pocket, in a crisis, maybe thoughtlessly neglecting that aspect is understandable.

Lest we forget that this is the same guy who inadvertently created a critical threat to the ship, from a slip of the tongue, while gaming in the holodeck. IMHO we should definitely recognize that this was the computer's fault, for running a program, that operates like most other human character interactive programs do in there. This should've solely been a working model & it should've known that, based on what we've been told about how it works to interpret the user's wants.

Frankly, using holodecks as working modelers, in numerous fields, should be their primary use... And yes, we certainly face similar pitfalls with what'll be our own developing relationship with AI.

 

[DonIago]

Frankly, using holodecks as working modelers, in numerous fields, should be their primary use...

I think this may be another area where the original intentions of TNG are at variance with what the show ended up doing, similar to saucer separation and having families aboard.

If the original intention had held up and the E-D had really been doing deep space exploration and rarely returning to 'civilized' space, then I think it would be a more valid argument that the holodecks are used for recreational purposes, to relieve the potential tedium of being "lost among the stars" for weeks or months at a time.

I still think having the holodeck as a recreational tool and to explore things that one can't necessarily do in other ways makes a lot of sense, but perhaps not as much when the E-D never appeared to be far from other opportunities for recreation.