Ghosts With Shit Jobs

My favourite talk at Defcon, the Las Vegas hacker convention that flew us out to screen Infest Wisely, was one on social engineering.

The speaker brought up the idea that by asking questions of someone you can increase the chances of getting what you want from them — somewhat similar to opening several applications at once on a computer can crash the system. I came across this idea again on a recent Radiolab piece on Choice:

…again, focusing on the idea that the human brain has limited analytical power. But it also explores the idea that a Vulcan like rationality causes indecision, since there’s no emotional “tilt” one way or the other.

So I’m imagining a duo of scientifically grounded con men (or women) who get what they want by exploiting this limitation of the human platform. As the movie progresses we discover their relationship to an artificial intelligence that needs their emotive decision making ability to function, and who has given them this training as a reward.

In 2014, the hottest toys for babies are Play’n Advantage brand. Backed by studies and reports, the odd but undeniably engaging products are sold out two weeks before Christmas… and then never go into production again. A year after that, the sought-after toys themselves break and disintegrate, dissolving in a similar fashion to the corporate entity that produced them.

It would all chalked up to eccentric inventors, but the Play’n babies are testing off the charts. Twenty years later, their emotional, intellectual and creative capacities (depending on which toy they played with the most) make them valued but somewhat ostracised members of society.

They form a weird subculture that’s parts toy nostalgia, hyperdevelopment, and mystery: what was behind the Play’n company? What were they given Advantages for?