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Dramatic dilemmas and AI
Can artificial intelligence make better decisions than we would ourselves? For that, it might be a good idea to look at the hardest decisions we face. And where better to look than in gripping drama?
We make a lot of decisions every day. The sometimes-cited figure of 35,000 seems just a little exaggerated (assuming a typical sixteen waking hours, it corresponds with a decision every two seconds), though. Even so, a lot of these decisions are simple — which sock to put on first, whether or not to look in the direction of an unexpected sound, or should we scratch that sudden itch (yes, in the privacy of our own home; no, during a job interview). Such decisions are of modest impact, and require little cognitive effort.
When trade-offs don’t give the answer
But some decisions are much harder — and much more interesting. These are the decisions that define good drama — whether it is an ancient Greek tragedy by Sophocles, a Shakespeare comedy, or a modern TV thriller. What powers the best narratives, even more than the dialogue, is the choices faced by the characters that populate them, and that they must make. The finest playwrights were (and are) invariably excellent observers of human decision…
