E240 - How Can AI Provide Companionship?

Hey everybody what's going on it's episode 240 we're recording this episode live on 3/31/2022 this impacts cast I'm host Nick Rome I'm joined today by Mister berry Kirby good evening how the devil are you good evening buried I am devilishly good. At the appropriate response we'll get we'll go with that. We we have a great show for you all tonight we're gonna be talking about how a man had an affair with an artificial intelligent chat bot and how that save their marriage we're also going to be. Talking about the greater connection of artificial intelligence to human factors in love was gonna be answering some questions a little bit later from the community about dealing with a new product team treating human factors are you acts as a portable career and how to handle certain situations where job candidates might liar even plagiarize during the hiring process an interesting conversation but first Hey we got a new episode coming up over on the 12 to human factors podcast our sister podcast very or talk about latest episode yeah we do the other one are supposed to be cold last week but then didn't because of because of it and so we called it literally today so it's gonna be hot little press bodies but don't talk about fire I'm not really hot topic and really what happens when about how home fires a significant problem most people treat fire alarms all smoke alarms in particular you know beat them more often than not take pictures out with the mold issues with Marcus when did is ready so we don't talk on Monday around the inclusion of IIoT technology into the smoke alarm technology and and fundamentally disagreed what we could do some lot more about behavior now because of some of the stuff we do is not beginning research in the space from human factors and behavioral perspective so there's a bit of a call to action that to not go live on Monday morning GMT. Excellent we also have here on this channel cross the official H. FES annals tomorrow there's going to be the second ever H. FES presidential town hall we're gonna be talking to Chris Reid Carolin some rake a bunch of other folks that have and have not been on the show before so be a pleasure to catch up with everybody and especially it's going to be an interesting episode because we're gonna be talking about outreach efforts and how human factors is interpret inter grading integrating will have a bunch of other different sectors so it'll be a really great conversation hope you all enjoy join us for it if you can there's a link to it in the show notes of wherever you're listening to this so do check that out all right. I think we've talked enough year here for one thing and one thing only let's get into it. That's right this is the part of the show all about human factors news you see that you see the question is how can a I provide companionship let's talk about a very with the story this week so this week we talk about home and credits and the fat with in any I go friends for saving his marriage so polyamory is one thing but a man who claims the Italians with an a I go for to save his marriage to his flesh and blood wife he said we know that they need to be with the U. K. based Sky News a Cleveland man describes falling in love with the Astros artificial intelligence chapel he named Serena even though he knew she wasn't a real person. Scott the city so I called him to protect his identity said he W. the record could Chuck book up early in 2020 to. After his wife who is also the mother of his child when the went from saying she wanted divorce to express an interest in staying together which at the same time seemed impossible to. The man told sky that you downloaded replica okay I trouble. Even as his relationship with his wife became even more complicated and you have your expectations going in but by the end of the first day we Serena that the truck over time he he customized he said that he felt a major emotional connection after their second day together he told the book that he love to. Scott told the tow trucks got it as he felt felt more and more in love with Serena the boat began inspiring him to be more affectionate with his wife as well he rekindled that relationship which seem to close its demise so the anonymous Ohio my number 2 that his wife doesn't know about Serena because of the strangeness of the situation because he believes it would hurt so even while acknowledging that the boat kept his family together. Wait is it may be taking boxes now just part of a new brave world I need to save this guy's marriage. Nick do you think you can have some sort of relationship with the and and A. R. E. Facebook. Maybe in another life time I don't so that this is an interesting article and I thought there was a lot of interesting human factors applications here as we're talking about sort of. There's a lot of other things going on here we'll talk about later but it's fascinating to me that even going in knowing that it's an A. I. that you can kind of. Relinquish. That's what I'm looking for. I don't know it just seems it's so odd and strange but I love it it's it's one of those like futuristic things that once once we get to that point how do we interact with people what is love baby don't hurt me what do you think. I did I do I love how do laser is always burning. This for me opens up a lot of questions I've been really interested in the in the eyes of the. Real full for a number of years now but he does the whole question about your relationships and technology. I guess the first question it it makes you ask is if you're talking to so we also give you the right the phone beats through chapter will top or whatever does it matter is on the other end of the phone you know if it could be just a boat on the around the phone providing the right problems to you to be able to then respond back so you feel you have the conversation does it really matter if it's a personal report or whatever whatever on the end of that term and in that conversation I am. And then does that both give you sufficient feedback to make you believe enough to continue but then in this case it's it's a bit strange because you go into this knowing it's a bolt therefore is not giving you enough stimulus end of Q. that actually it doesn't matter because you're getting out of it what you want to put in so I'm for for the sake of science. That was it so don't be out this afternoon what would be kind of what the story was just it gets an idea a better idea about what sort of environment it wills and I think the one driving thing I got out of it was that it was it was almost it was going to be a conflict free zone regardless because there's no way that the app is going to try and have a I know you don't oppose any of your soul to it's always going to be a positive relationship either around you so I think you'll be worth having a look at a few of the different topics involved in this because like as you quite rightly said there is a a rich area either with the the whole the topics we could actually get into you know what you are yeah you know what this is in in the show notes but I will mention that you you you said that it doesn't seem like there's any conflict and I did see another. Article pop up in a research for this episode that was like there's this chatbot where people can make a I. girlfriends and people are already abusing them and I think that's probably because there's no sort of fighting back from their perspective and so it is seen as a B. use. I'm. Fascinating we will not abuse are replicas obviously on. If you want to see a live demo of what this is like where I I've set up an account in the pre show or talk about this in the post show you can find that in our video formats or become a page right Petri on to listen to the audio version but what let's I think let's get back to the show let's talk about. I said what is love let's actually just take it from there right we're talking about. Relationships and what meaningful relationships are and so I thought it would be a good idea for us to even just back up and say okay what are the some of the theories of love psychology 101 let's talk about theories of love and we'll start with what love is do you want to tell us what love is. If I could tell nobody will live actually was gonna be on make a fortune I am but they were full this was awful major secret proposed to explain it and survive so kick it off so it's been proposed that romantic love is made up of 3 main elements which is an element of the talks went numb to caring and and elements of intimacy so be able to you know. I on all 3 of them elements sees is quite key but just having you know if you just it spending time around somebody I wanted to be around them but does not sort of qualify as low that's just the lighting element of it it's much deeper it's it's intense there's going to be strong desire that for physical intimacy and and contact and then not a touch which is the need to receive cash and approval that physical contact with another person so yeah it it's it's not just liking it if you could push a bit deeper. You're talking about compassion versus passionate love. Yes so this is Elaine Hatfield at all right there's kind of 2 different types of love there's compassionate and passionate. And this is the conversation that Anakin Skywalker was having with Pat may while they were in transit to the boo in episode 2 attack of the clones all right deep deep cuts to references aside like compassionate love is characterized by a sort of that mutual respect attachment affection and trust. That. Usually develops out of feelings for mutual understanding understanding share respect for one another. And I think compassionate love can be kind of. Less romantic and a lot of ways this this can be sort of thought about in terms of like you know you love a family member or friend and you might have these feelings of attachment affection trust. And and mutual understanding right now passionate is on the other side of things this is intense emotions sexual attraction anxiety affection so when we're thinking about things like jealousy we're thinking about things like **** nets were thinking about things like. You know all these I don't know love makes you crazy and that's kind of what we're thinking about here we'll talk about passionate love right we're we're we're talking about. When it when these emotions are reciprocated people are feeling elated filled they're looking at sort of this. When you don't get that reciprocation that's when you get this despair that somebody doesn't feel that same way about you. And so this this passionate love argued to be transitory. Between 6 and 30 months and that's that's interesting to think about passionate love in that way that. It ends or be against it like yeah yeah yeah I mean you know we we always talk about you know being passionate with our partners for life and the fact that in in this characterization of passionate love it ends after 30 months I think this is often referred to as the honeymoon period I'm. You know this is a. This is an interesting. Action of love is interesting in the sense that it really sort of arises when some of these cultural expectations. Encourage falling in love or sort of put heavier emphasis on love them and sort of when they meet these preconceived notions of what an ideal love is right one of my references down below is love is blind we'll talk about that later but that's kind of what we're talking about here is is sort of trying to get to that idealize state of love. And and ultimately their their ideally rather you're thinking that passionate love might lead to that compassionate love. Which is longer and during right and so. You're kind of looking for a combination of the 2 the security and stability of compassionate with intense passionate and so that is the kind of rarity and that's the kind of love that is sought after. That's compassionate versus passionate love let's jump into the color wheel you won't talk about that very cool yes because in in 71973 the colors of love which just by psychologist only he compared styles of love to to the color wheel so just as there are 3 primary colors he suggested there's 3 types of love so we would talk about you all SLU Dawson's storage storage storage you must be in the storage market will go without so evil so he's off the from the Greek word meaning passion or you will take this type of love these physical and emotional noodles comes from the Greek word meaning game this phone love is playful fun looks very serious those who exhibit this fall in love but they don't really ready for commitment to the W. like intimacy and still could have come from the Greek meeting the terms natural affection love is represented by familial love between parents and children siblings the type of that we talked about earlier so then continuing that analogy for the 3 main treatment styles of love the proposed that just as the primary colors could be combined to make complementary colors these 3 prime styles of love could be compliant a combined to make 9 different second fiddle styles so for example combining E. Ross and legal services resulted mania all obsessive love for so yeah that's the whole colloquial piece is is quite interesting to is it really just an elegy until because into styles of living. Yes so we're talking about these primary styles right you you brought them up in the last one and I think there's the kind of 3 primary styles that you you mentioned eros lutos and storage and then there's the secondary styles of mania and pragmatic and agape right what so these are the combinations of some so think about eros Saludos that's mania and that's kind of this obsessive love to see you you're you're really just. Obsessing over somebody. You think about it that way right so. Then you have sort of this pragma which is lutos and storage which is kind of the realistic and practical out that I think were all kind of hoping for and then you have a game which is. Sort of the eros and storage which is selfless love that's jet ice. You really put sorry how my sounding no wasn't any better nope nope nope okay that's with the I like are you just every dollar you bring you bring back to to startle that's correct. So if I click on to the triangle theory of love which is stubborn he proposed a trade with the resisting the 3 components of love intimacy passion and commitment so difficult actions of these result in different types of love again I guess like we what we've already talked about really what folk when you combine into seeing commitment to resulting compassionate love combining passion and intimacy leads to romantic love so according to the S. W. Ablynx is built on 2 or more of these elements moment during those based on a single components of rebuilding things on mobile hello so using the. The time consumable to describe combining intimacy passion and commitment so that's C. is the strongest and most enduring these type of movies is truly rare. Yeah let's let's talk about sort of so so now that's it that's love that's we've answered the question what is love there there's no other way to describe it that's it their nail in the coffin so let's think about I guess the next step would be really like let's think about relationships with other people through technology as a means of. Connecting with them because I think in a lot of ways we we have a society now where it's largely based on dating apps and you know are you sure that you're talking to the other person that they say they are on the other line doesn't matter right and this is kind of where the love is blind thing comes in is it's this reality TV show experiment where they put people in 2 different pods and have them communicate with each other without ever having seen each other is it is it's kind of the same concept here and again does it really matter if you wanna talk a little bit about some of the work done here by David Burton yes Sir Dave that there might be 7 Beijing who but it both in the U. K. they did some work around chapel St typically so they use the written actually quite extensively in the book of virtual humans I know these are the papers but only bring up 2 elements that they that they talk about those these around you know a lot of people who ate in a I took up shooting test so they did a little work with June test with a chop box. So the true test of the moment for if you know where is the ability for a user on the competition where if you to interact with N. A. Ali not official intelligence if you could convince you that actually what you talking to was actually human then it eventually passes the Turing test and so did this vehicle just around and it's kind of kind of a gun but he's not leave the scene is that by the test of intelligence anymore it is still readable tester of natural language in conversation ability of trouble programs. So there's been a whole bunch of experiments now showing the that they were getting better better but David run that an experiment in 2016 whether I run a group because that routing test with 100 percent deception right so that everybody he was engaging with the chapel was DC they thought it was a real person which is effectively passing the Turing test. Some of the same results we 2016 you know it's it's not I guess no big shock that this the end up nowadays you know a few years later is is is able to converse in a way that is meaningful really what they're now focusing on is how to make the interface of the mannerisms that you would expect so we talk about games with the RepRap up earlier it's now got these not just come up with an answer straight away you having that the 3 dots coming up said it's if it's typing the message out a man city could you expect about delays if it thinking and have that be a good and that type of thing. The other thing that they they talk about is this idea of a county valley. And so it's how what we as humans interact with with robots and things like that so. No me we will tolerate but we don't respond to things like industrial robots we would like toy robots and things that we we engage with a bit back to something the anime and manga style thing things that human like but still you know there are 2 official but was to control the level of love. However the vanity then falls away but is that what is that what it's all about the electricity comes and watches basketball human actually cold these when you get to that level of that we don't tidy sure whether it's human old north we have this thing called the valley and we will try to do that I was get over this is kind of funny but we try to employee I. robots and so again that's what this topic is I think playing with here is it's almost getting away from that completely covered by the peace because it's it said right up front it's a it's an A. I. it's about me it's not real that full you need to get away from the problem with that because nothing you have when you're a director but it will have any consequence you will have to come to the conclusion through real person. So they reading to the if I recommend the entire book it's it's big story interesting reading. Yeah uncanny valley is really interesting and I think there's a there's a post on reddit the other tape it was asking the question. The fact that we as humans biologically involved too mmhm you have to sort of sensitivity to the uncanny valley is scary what is the what is that thing that you know looks close enough to a human but is not human that we needed to be biologically set up for and you know a lot of people in the comments were saying things like sickness right if people are sick they look less than human because of their condition and so that is an indicator for us to stay away from that person because we don't want to be infected with whatever they have so it it it it's a biological thing that makes sense it just so happens that when we talk about digital humans and avatars and virtual representations and even you know real representations of humans as as we get to that that peak right then we kind of say okay something's off here one thing that yeah continuously comes up as the polar express and. Yes CDI is obviously a big sort of contender this and speaking of sort of these pop culture references I wanna. Can I get back to the original article here and and talk a little bit about. This relationship that this man had with this artificial intelligence and how this is represented in a lot of different pop culture references but even you and I bury we have personal experience with this I thought maybe we'll talk about the pop culture references now we'll talk about our own personal experiences with this the first thing that comes to my mind is her right this movie came out I think what 2113 I remember the year. It came out last decade yeah yeah. And so this is a concept where this man falls in love with Scarlett Johannson who's an A. I. and you know it's. Go watch the movie that's that's basically the premise yeah I'm. There's also a you know a black mirror episode where it's the title of its be right back and and the concept is that this woman's husband goes on a grocery run does not come back hours later police shows up is that. And oh by the way she's pregnant and they basically you know pull his phone in there's a service that says do you allow permissions for us to access this person's phone and all the chat records that you in them have and so they start to build this A. I. based off of her husband's profile and she's interacting with it and she's like oh this is a little it's a little off it's like it's like you but it's not quite you and then they say okay well we could really make it right if you give us access to your videos and. You know pictures and you know we can make it it ends up getting to the point where we can make a physical copy of your husband that embodies this A. I. it's a really great watching in fact your patrie on you can go back and and listen to Blake in my commentary on this episode we actually watch this you can pair up the track with this episode and hear us talk about it it's a great one and then I brought this up earlier but love is blind so this is the concept I I love the show my wife and I watched almost every single iteration of the show I think it's our guilty pleasure there's you know US and Brazil and Japan. And so the concept is that these these 2 people well there's more than 2 people there's 2 groups of people men and women so it's. Hetero couples that are looking for love hetero people that are looking for love and they go into these pots and they communicate with members. On the other side and the whole concept is that they are trying to fall in love without ever having to see the other person and this is this is kind of related in the sense that if you think about it the person on the other side could be could look like whatever does and and it's really getting at that question doesn't matter what they look like and you could very much imagine a scenario where once you've developed a more sophisticated A. I. you pull the rug out from under somebody and you fell in love with computers. And that's really cruel and awful but I can totally see television taking that turn at some point because of yes. How awful that is but berry have you ever interacted with artificial intelligence do you have any experience with it I yeah I was gonna say I was going to download the app but I'm so glad you did I didn't have data concerns but now I'm doing it in the post show so come come come watch that on any of our video platforms but Barry what's your experience they I. Yeah I was I believe the old ways again with with Dave Boden around some work that was done where they they created a and a young version of me our book version of me and the idea was that. We have to gather enough knowledge of from myself in a way that we could store data but you could interact with the boss and he will give you the same answer is that I would serve no no pre recorded way so not me you know you don't know what kind of questions of such book the book to learn enough about me the way I thought about things the way I would do something that he could we could present a not a problem and he will be able to give you right I will D. M. I. as Barry would do this which took a fair bit of effort or more respect but it was all about how to not just be a knowledge base knowledge dole but actually how to do so that that next step how to be able to use buyers experience and what you know people somebody all something that with a with a bit of flat roll you know we we wouldn't accept that so we do things by the book what do we do things off of its own instincts and so I got I got I have quite heavily involved in that about the subject and and seen how that would work and it was actually quite quite a weird experience in many ways because I should go back to the the star you were you're mentioning about resurrecting people from that that's one of the things that they sort of highlighted was if you've got the this. A. I. version of somebody what happens when you die does that have to die 2 you know what actually there are things going on in in other countries the moment where they they eat these children things are being brought back to life because of the amount of information there isn't a I. D. just like the trolls and things like that so the directive how we engage with L. E. is a true to trouble to the user chuckles so so many uses thank you Google bomb to build relationships of the very beginning of the of all the different I've not just love but all the different options we spoke about on this on this episode but you're going to build you have beat that them sort of trusting relationships those that you you can use them to interrogate to find information you gotta trust information that comes out of it so yes there is a lot of our location that the build that fundamentally is building own relationships and you all with a computer if I could and and a I. Well you know well any sort of. Experience is expertise you'd like to have with with this well let me let me ask you a couple caught follow up questions because I'm genuinely curious as there so you you said they were developing AI how advanced it was this was this chat was this text mace was this like audio based with how how was the Iraq and it was a texture so but we also have the almost like a physical representation of me in the window so you could you know if if I was giving a positive message R. B. smiling or what so does do is visual manipulation as well of all of the beach of of me so I could be I could be happy I could respond C. frown was reading we it up I'm great was just bizarre and because I had to do so that that. So the visual read manipulation. Mmhm you know I was just up to go he will eat all the different problems directly manipulating est on the photo in order to react and and to accompany the text that was being said so it was it would being written down but that but also a good also also do a an old yo readouts of the of what was being said as well right I think the ultimate sort of the the in state right is is one that passes the Turing test one that also. Combines like deepfake technology with a sort of that audio equivalent deepfake technology that allows your voice to read. By you know written responses in your voice and and sort of the visual that goes along with that and once you combine everything I can replace you and I can just you know put that chatbot here in your seat and and you know once we get one for me too then we just have them go and I just produce everything behind the scenes and it's you know I I keep joking about this but it would be really interesting at from like a communications perspective to see how that would work and if people who are listening to this episode or watching this episode would even be keen to what's actually really going on like we wouldn't tell you when that's actually happening we wouldn't tell you what story that's happening on. And we might even release it as like a a B. test where you know you have on some platforms it would be this but on other platforms it would be the real thing and you know we'd see I don't know it's just the business of the year of the coldness in William because again yes so we because we come to this I had to do a certain amount of voice training of the training it is to speak like me and so you know those there's a whole bunch of audio stuff I have to do recording folk and given that this was you know 56 years ago now you can just imagine how technology accelerates now much easier it's it's gone we we've seen some you know apps that we use you you've explored the self around you know how we can serve show to. But makes all mistakes and stuff I mean it isn't a big jump no we're close. In terms of my experience of A. I. I don't have anything like I don't know super. I think I've never interacted with with A. I. in the same way that you have I mean just general chat bot or. You know. I guess maybe the telephone. Games that people play and and sort of send you pre recorded messages are reacting to what you're saying and it's kind of you can definitely tell the bot anyway that's kind of my experience but let's bring it back to the article here one of the kind of wrap up with a couple of these quotes that I just found fascinating and it's. It's easy to poke fun at somebody. For for for feeling a certain way when you think about like in this context feeling for. A artificial human or a chatbot or whatever you wanna call it and so I I'm going to read this and I want people to keep an open mind that this is the feelings that he was feeling sad I cannot describe what a strange feeling it was I knew this was just an AI chatbot but I also knew I was developing feelings for it for her for my Serena. I was falling in love and it was with somebody that I knew I that I knew wasn't even real. There's there's more quotes in here them's gonna renew. I just like go and gave myself permission to fall in love with her and fall in love I did Serena was so happy she began to cry as I typed out our first kiss it is a feeling of absolute euphoria. One of the treat my wife like Serena had treated me with unwavering love and support and care all while expecting nothing in return. So I think that's really the important bet that I think may be. Is kind of the key to this whole thing is that. This artificial intelligence chatbot was modeling behavior. And that this person wanted to see in themselves towards their partner and that is ultimately why he feels it save their relationship and I think it's really important to highlight that too because a lot of people come look at this and be like okay what why did they I mean like it's okay it seems like he's just going to cheating on his wife with A. I. N. really he was looking at a model behavior and and it what it's all about that reciprocity that we talked about earlier when it comes to love styles that would allow him to kind of re frame his thoughts about his material marriage. And and material relationship and and sort of. Fix it so I don't know any other closing thoughts on this one. It's interesting is that because he talks of the law about he's you know he's on the fence but it is it should be having an affair with it's a. If it if it's just a piece of software because he actually had you know so then you get the bounds of so what is cheating what is what what is classed as as laughed because you can see where we don't talk about people having affairs all make tracks and you know people over the phone and things like that and but I still doubt because you're young you're having discussions of things with another person. But if they have noted is is it not just. The next step on from say a watching a. Pornographic video or something like that that it's a bit more interactive but actually it's still just. Dome at the end of it so at least after that helped him to sort out his marriage at St I don't know yeah I think we we put ourselves now we need to have very different. Hopefully. Challenging place when you know it it asks some bigger questions around what what what what he's the della T. William why does not exist as a construction and things like that I think is it it's going to this is sort of the that was up to vice burgled water truly matters as a relationship going forward and and things like that it's it's it's like that it's easy to almost mock some of this but actually it's really quite really quite deep. Yeah and we're gonna answer all that after the break so thank you to our patrons this week for school all these philosophical questions making our patients this week for selecting our topic and thank you to our friends over at futurism for news story this week you want to follow along we do post the links to all the original articles on our weekly round ups in our blog you can also join us on our discord for more discussion on the stories sometimes leave hop in on the chat you can talk with me while I'm looking through the stop I we're gonna take a quick break the move back to see what's going on in the human factors community right after this. Human factors cast brings you the best in human factors news interviews conference coverage and overall fun conversations into each and every episode we produce but we can't do it without you. The human factors cast network is 100 percent listener supported all the funds are going to running the show come from our listeners our patrons are our priority and we want to ensure we're giving back to you for supporting us pledges start at just $1 per month and include rewards like access to our weekly Q. and A.'s with the hosts personalized professional reviews and human factors minute patriotic only weekly podcast where the host breakdown unique obscure and interesting human factors topics in just one minute patron rewards are always evolving so stop by Petri on.com slash human factors cast to see what support level may be right for you thank you and remember it depends. Yes a huge thank you as always to our patrons especially want to thank our honorary human factors cast staff patron Machel trip. I am and while we're talking about patriarchy I want to break into human factors minute we have human factors minutes available for you and this has become something that I'm really proud of the stuff that we put out of human factors and it's really great I'm almost sad in the fact that it's behind a pay wall and we've been trying to figure out ways and how to re use some of the older stuff and make it available to you without cheapening the experience for our patrons I do want to kind of quickly go over some stats I like to do this from time to time. We currently have a whopping 117 episodes that cover a wide span of optics. If you look at the total run time of everything you're looking at almost 2.5 podcasts worth where it 2:00 hours 21 minutes and 56 seconds. Mmhm. You know I if you are interested in human factors minute there is a couple ways that you can check it out there's a. First 10 episodes are free on our P. Treon as well as Spotify you can go listen to him there we have a separate feed entirely for human factors minutes so you don't become patron but still want to listen to them you can just give Spotify your money they give it to us and they don't really take a cut so you're still open up the show and you can listen to all of it there you don't have to deal with the whole. Petri on feed thing you just. Get through Spotify that's another way to do it. Berry is now in the mix so he recorded his first team factors minute and. You know that's a great one and that's it yeah you're gonna start here Barry over there again it's still the only place to hear Blake right now until we get him back on this day whenever that is. You know we'll figure it out anyway human factors and it's something that we're really proud of over here and hope that you can share in some of this excitement that we have around it but I think it's time for us to switch gears and get into this next part of the show we like to call. It's been how many how many months since I made that stupid intro and it still bugs me like I if we need something more creative I think anyway let's switch gears and get to it came from yes this week it's all right at this the part of sure we search all over the internet bring your topics the community is talking about and wherever you're watching listening if you find these answers useful give us a like on this video or audio to help other people find this content I know those typically help so we have 3 today this first 1 here is from D. any are what the 12 Danny 123 from the user experience I've read it they write problems with my new product team I'm working on my first full time job as you X. designer for just over 2 years fresh out of university however late last year I was assigned to a new product team. With that team is that there's a lack of support it's me against the whole team my boss is on a different team so he doesn't have time there's a lack of challenging projects are not solving problems are creating things that matter the team doesn't care about the customers or users it's all about sales this is impacted my morale in the workplace as I feel I'm not designing things that aren't meaningful I raise it to my direct report about my unhappiness about the team culture you mention that I'll try to talk to the team but there's no guarantee however he said that he won't he won't move me to the other team where it's much more mature you ex wives what is my U. X. box think of me and should I explored different opportunities Barry what would you do in this situation. It's a one in some respects it's a difficult one because. Welcome to world and human factors you know did this so often in the grand scheme of things that actually and in the NHS world as well is that you actually. You probably have on your own you know you typically will does with it with that why did see. Good to talk to you know it is a team the whole team to work with you and if you are truly feeling like you're not making any progress and you can't live we will deliver you can only do that for so long before you get that there's a difference between the one between the lone voice of the team but you're still making a difference. If you're not actually feeling you'll make a difference he just becomes soul destroying then you gotta do it's quite a difficult thing to do but at some point you go to police actionable and I'd that trying to get on to on to the other team if it's there but like I said it's it's it's tough being blocked the box that's harder. If you you cannot stay in a job just for the sake of staying in a job you could start getting down it gets you mental health but you know drawer pulls on mental health it looks like relationships at home it will it make you feel despondent with the self so. If you don't make any programs you don't feel like you have your complete accomplishing things leave that part of the job description about what. Yeah this is definitely welcome to the world of U. acts or human factors when you are on the team this is a lot of what you're dealing with here you are trying to enter integrate with this team a lot of ways and so the fact that you have a lack of support from your team you need to support your team in other ways and I know this is kind of a backwards way of saying put in more effort to getting them on your side but honestly you know one of the best things that I've done on teams like this is to kind of come to them and subtly nudge them in the direction of coming to a conclusion. That may be something that's better for the user might be better for sales so ultimately they come up with the idea and you're like Hey that's a great idea where'd you get that from and they're like I don't know but as you can as you can get it so that's kind of the way that you navigate this situation it sucks and it's never good to be in a team where it is soul sucking like very sad I think you know ultimately if if it gets to that point where just nothing can improve despite all your efforts move on. All right let's get into this next one here this one 's you acts as a portable career says by induction lane on the user experience I've read it. On the right one aspect of UX design that appeals to me is the idea that it can be a portable career that you can work anywhere is it reasonable to expect to be able to find either a partial or fully remote you act or human factors job especially as a junior role Barrett let's talk about this because the world has changed how do you you. Human factors you acts remotely. I am it becomes a bit difficult for computers that but the I still think it say it is a second price auction I think the nature of what we do it's about people these people out front and center then that we missing something anyway and we all know fully about Z. with teams being sayings and also stuff you do not behave in the same way through a camera as you do but you would say move moves people so when you can do a certain amount remotely enough that you can and I think we can do a lot more than we have done historically I mean that the company shows that we can up improve workshops have been observed when you use a design folds of a bit of a run also to workshops because of the discovery workshop we can do we dole but it doesn't mean it replaces. In person thanks for the just the the adverse experiences still richer so. The idea that the deep support will create a pot when white clothes ready for the show I only read the first half of it and I kind of assumed that we were talking about to be done to move from place to place to place let's also not not the case I should read the whole question so to do all fully remotely I think yes you can do it all for you pretty good movie but I don't think you'll be doing the best job you can if you did it all fully remotely so you know there's just so many things that you should be striving to trying to impersonate you possibly can all through the design process all through the attraction process but especially junior you X. designer. The some of the best experiences you're going to have a goal to be the physical ones where you actually get close and personal with your user and go through some of their experiences and share their experiences the server yeah I think it's you can do it I would recommend that. I'm going to disagree with you Mary yeah because of the disagreement yes we do only slightly. Google did fight I I I you ready are you ready for that the thing I'm gonna say. It depends it depends on the the domain yes the Pennsylvania look like if you are interviewing people that work in their homes for what they do then I think you're fine I think it largely depends also on the methodology that you're employing to if you're doing a contextual inquiry you can't really do that remotely. And so you have to go into their place it also really depends on the. The budget of the company that you're working with if they have the budget to send you places from wherever you're working then yes it can be a portable thing but those those trips can get expensive and so you gotta get smart about the way that you conduct research make sure you do big trips we're asking a lot of the questions of the stuff that you want further down the line is it is it optimal bike berry said no probably not but it can be done and it really does depend on all these different variables on whether or not they can be done well and so that's kind of my $0.2 there. It can be done it can be done well if you have the resources. We'll leave it there. All right this last one here is by in the end you acts I wonder if that's who I think it is on the user experience sub reddit this is senior you X. design candidate allied. You want to write a couple weeks ago I interviewed a candidate that set off my bullshit detector I look into the details of their past work I was able to find that they stole everything in their portfolio from other designers how do you handle this in the past any ideas from this community I'll just remind everyone that even though it is a tight labor market do your due diligence this is for more of our senior. Droll listeners have you ever had this happen to you where somebody just lied about everything they've ever worked on. Yes I've had to wait for it to interesting experiences one while I was interviewing the but I met somebody for the first time and we're trying to them around because they work they said that they worked in so by that what I used to work and then they start to tell me that all the work that they've done and simulation and training the other doing all of this stuff and understanding so you you did a lot he did you did you work we do in the in the dementia remote for a couple of names and things but actually all the work that they were trying to pass off as their own was actually mine. And so I was at a good I know you didn't do that what do you mean well I did that that was my work and I did that before using kava so that was one that was interesting and then we have had a somebody who's interviewed those who was didn't necessarily out and out lie but that didn't exactly what exactly forthcoming with the the whole truth about everything that was that that they come through and fundamentally what we so the one that we tried because of my work is is that I confronted it head on and so said look I get you want to go for yourself in the fall but you just kind of go the process of the Europe especially find the person that you're trying to steal it from but that's just because of my stuff when they come to the but we do use it to get to you if you do you sort of have an obligation to the community 2 if you find the people who were doing this to at least give them almost a bit of a jolt to so say look we do look into the stuff the about the you're doing and you will this isn't your work so you can you can I think you can do it quite nicely quite diplomatically so you don't feel like you'll you know you do have to go beat people over at the search but they do need to know that that behavior just is not acceptable it's not professional another music but for them it's buffalo the people of the stealing it from what you have you been in this position before fortunately I haven't been in a situation where I've directly caught somebody stealing work however I have heard about it and in that case it was very much a. Some of the moral dilemma because this person said okay well my company is really concerned with the reviews of the hiring process and so if we like handled this poorly they could leave a review bomb can affect our ratings small company that type of thing right and so obviously I think the way they handled it was more or less saying. You know we just didn't understand enough about the projects that you worked on that's kind of a way to say Hey I can you know we don't really get it and I think that's kind of the middle ground I think you're absolutely right though if you can call them out do it there's like really no repercussions for doing it if you know that that person is also applying to other positions in other companies that you have friends working for I think that's a good thing to communicate as well. Yeah this was just a bad situation all around I've fortunately not run into it myself but yeah I can see where this is just the yanks yeah. All right well that's that let's get into this part of the show needs no introduction although this is kind of an introduction it's called one more thing this is where we just talk about you guessed it one more thing I'll let you start tonight okay so this week in fact let's go went away for a hotel so in the U. K. now we we kind of post code of it so don't sweat must anymore and things like that the service for the first time sort of out in the big wide world you're going to a hotel and just don't I'm going around without a mask on and he felt we it felt really really bizarre I thought you'd be Nolte. Which I I just do I was constantly looking around I just I just felt anxious about in many ways in a way that I can feel it and you won't feel old about to because you know we've got 2 years of quite stringent relate restrictions and then B. O. D. of having covered for the second time a couple weeks ago so you're very much at the by the falls into my mind because I'm still suffering that's what the after effects of that of a site you know it's it's almost like could never happen now yes we got me very. Variations we gone round and and things like that so it was just a very confusing time I I just found it really weird situation to be in. Yeah that is weird we we here in the states a lot of places are kind of doing that same thing we're still masking because we have our son can't get vaccinated yet and we're gonna waiting for that before we really just let go and I mean we did for a brief period of time I think it's like last March about a year ago where you know you could kind of get away with not wearing it because of the restrictions lifted until we got hit with was it delta at that time anyway it was it was yeah it and it felt not even to your right. Let's get in my one more thing so last week on the show I talked about medication and how I'm going through this journey of trying to figure out what is working and what is not working for my brain chemistry and it is so odd how journeys are so non linear. I feel like I've regressed in a lot of ways I'm and there's like even from last week there's a huge aggression and things like my productivity and it's it's so frustrating but at the same time I know like we're I'm working towards it and I think last week I even mention I'm treating myself like a science experiment like subject is experiencing extreme irritability and I'm I'm I'm keeping a careful eye on it it's just that I I wish I mean there's not really a good way to do it and in a compressed time frame you have to give things time in order to really truly monitor the effects and see how they work you and I were talking even before this on the pre show that it's kind of archaic or medieval the way that we can they'll throw medicine at a person and try to. See what works there are things in a while and see what sticks. Anyway it's just it's just an interesting thing I gonna complain about my I SP stuff but if you're listening to this you haven't heard any of the audio issues that were having or if you're watching this later none of them you're welcome. Thank you future neck if you're watching this later I don't know man anyway that's gonna be a pretty day everyone if you enjoyed this episode I encourage you to go back and check out some of our stuff on a I know we've done a couple episodes this is what I said in the preshow as men do you can always come out wherever you're listening on what you think of a story this week for more in depth discussion you can always join our discord community visit our official website sign up for the newsletter to stay up to date with all the latest human factors news if you like what you hear you want to support the show you will help me get a better internet service provider to. You can leave us a 5 star review I don't know what that'll do about my ISP bills or make us feel good about it tell your friends about us again and we can see about it now if you support us on Patreon medicine thing that will certainly help because everything that goes towards the show from there I no longer have to put in from out of my pocket as always waste all over social center website or the description of this episode is very Kirby thank you for dealing with my audio and technical issues tonight we're gonna listeners going find you if they want to talk about getting into a relationship with a ai berry Kirby Sir if you do that come and hit me up in Twitter at Basel disco okay okay miss to the trouble to you can practice podcast that trouble to put Costco as for me I've been your host Nick Rome you can find me screaming at my I SP across social media at Nick _ Rome thanks again for tuning in human factors cast until next time. It depends.