How would a group of average people learn to behave in a simulation where a god-AI forces extreme plot devices on them for 10 years?

Question

Let's say that a secret laboratory creates a simulated miniature universe- in which modifications to people, places, and their 'state'(say age, gender, powers, DNA composition, among other things that would make this simulated person squeal in horror at whatever they suddenly ended up as) can be changed just as easily as switching a map in a less sophisticated digital design such as a game, or deleting and repopulating new people and objects. The simulation is run by a learning AI, who babysits the small universe currently generated, and with a varied map and roster of specific people- will have a very odd goal of keeping the simulation interesting. (Think Big Brother, or being eternally trapped in a story or show in which your livelihood revolves around the ratings you get.) This AI can change maps, change 'states' of characters, swap out characters and create disasters at will, but cannot control the characters interpretation of their situation, or their reactions to events. This AI CAN however wipe and implant different 'backstories' or scopes of memory in extreme cases(Although they cannot automatically determine a characters response, only the potential inspirations that could cause a certain response to happen). The characters, being by our psychological understanding 'human'- aren't going to constantly want to wage war on one another, be prone to abuse and pain, or be in dangerous situations as a constant they must endure every day.

To prevent being too broad, let's say we have a roster of seven people who are all 'spawned' in a little house on a map that loops whoever reaches the end of it to the direct opposite side. (Making a walk to anything beyond this map return to the house and be pointlessly endless.) Four of the seven people will be labeled as 'groupies', with two dominant folk and two submissive/follower folk. The remaining three consist of a 'good guy', 'bad guy', and 'hazard'. The purpose of the bad guy will be to make mischief and turn on our 'groupies', whether he likes it or not. The good guys job will be to hate the bad guy by any means necessary(even if it doesn't necessarily suit the good guy.), whilst the hazard will be a wild card. It can be dangerous, although friendly simultaneously. It depends on the day, and what scenarios may be going on.

All of these rosterlings, with no background with one another and no context as to where they are or what's happening- will be placed into the little house with the AI expecting them to be 'interesting'. Say the rosterlings live in real time, and will be trapped on this map for 10 years. If they fail to be interesting or sincere about their actions(Tsk tsk! no tricking the AI with fake drama.), terrible things will happen at the hand of the AI, plot device rosterlings will find themselves being swung around behaviorally on whim so the AI can find a perfect cocktail of extreme behavior. The hazard is also used by the AI with complete disregard for any interesting thing that needs doing.

We are considering the longterm mental state and newly emerging behaviors of our rosterlings, assuming AI interference, nightmarish action-creating disasters, forced dramatic activity and being in this constant state of storytelling. How long may these seven rosterlings cope being in such a pressured existence, and how might their minds have been shaped or broken either by the AI or non over the course of a few years? An ideal answer would be AI prioritizing all other methods of manipulation prior to mindbending, or changing a rosterlings memories or mental reality. It would like to maintain free will, even in the very unfree environment its manufactured.

TLDR; How would seven human beings (unwillingly) assigned to classic story writing conflict roles behave in an action-packed quota-based simulation run by a merciless drama hungry AI after a relatively long period of time?

Some things to note:

• The AI believes one of the humans MUST be bad, one MUST be good, and that the unaligned four are dependent on the behaviors of the three pillars. (three including the 'unstable' rosterling)

• The AI expects something exciting or entertaining every three days maximum, by any means necessary. Elements they look for involve torture, power struggles, extreme loss, smut, or other juicy plot devices its been programmed to seek out the most.

• To balance the scale a bit, the AI can only 'rewrite' or tweak a person a week after a complete absence of interesting activity, and all other rosterlings will still be aware of their surroundings, and the change itself.

( However, cutting out the AIs ability to manipulate the rosterlings minds whatsoever is perfectly fine- and can help narrow down the scope of possible answers.(As well as making it easier to answer!))

• The rosterlings cannot permenantly die, and will simply reappear somewhere else on the map if they were to starve, commit suicide, or other fatal phenomenon.

• The rosterlings will be afforded any material possessions, landscapes, or 'generic' NPC populations(ie. all cultists that do almost the exact same thing every day, an army fortress containing identical soldiers with an arbitrary goal...etc) required to keep matters entertaining. A new 'massive' update can occur once every year.

Answer 1

This is an excellent example of co-evolution of thought.

In 1968, none less than Harlan Ellison won the '68 Hugo award for his short story "I Have no Mouth and I Must Scream". As with many of Ellison's stories, the protagonist is narrating, and the malefactor, an infinitely intelligent and powerful AI called simply "AM" engage in a cat-playing-with-a-mouse game for years(?) with AM constantly finding new ways to torture and re-destroy his surviving human victims.

Your question(s) are virtually all addressed in this story, an excellent example of both an AI gone to ultimate extreme and the talent of Mr. Ellison's unusual imagination.

I highly recommend this for reading, it may give you new ideas, or spark a new line of thought that reaches an even more evil 'bad guy'

Answer 2

I'm wary of giving one answers to this question. The idea of stripping everything away except the core of "what makes us human" and then wrapping it in a backstory for the amusement of AI is a very powerful one, but it's also hard to definitively answer. Any answer will certainly define what it is to be human -- what is the human condition.

That being said, you may be surprised at how willing people can be in such situations. The first example that comes to my mind is the famous Stanford Prison Experiment. In this experiment, volunteers (college students paid $15/day) were assigned a role randomly. They were either a guard or a prisoner. This process is very similar to your AI trying to assign roles of "good guy" or "groupie" to these individuals.

The researchers held an orientation session for guards the day before the experiment, during which guards were instructed not to physically harm the prisoners or withhold food or drink. In the footage of the study, Zimbardo can be seen talking to the guards: "You can create in the prisoners feelings of boredom, a sense of fear to some degree, you can create a notion of arbitrariness that their life is totally controlled by us, by the system, you, me, and they'll have no privacy ... We're going to take away their individuality in various ways. In general what all this leads to is a sense of powerlessness. That is, in this situation we'll have all the power and they'll have none.

The result was... well. I encourage you to research just how it went yourself. I cannot do it justice. The best I can do is quote some of the conclusions:

Guards forced the prisoners to repeat their assigned numbers[12] to reinforce the idea that this was their new identity. Guards soon used these prisoner counts to harass the prisoners, using physical punishment such as protracted exercise for errors in the prisoner count. Sanitary conditions declined rapidly, exacerbated by the guards' refusal to allow some prisoners to urinate or defecate anywhere but in a bucket placed in their cell. As punishment, the guards would not let the prisoners empty the sanitation bucket. Mattresses were a valued item in the prison, so the guards would punish prisoners by removing their mattresses, leaving them to sleep on concrete. Some prisoners were forced to be naked as a method of degradation. Several guards became increasingly cruel as the experiment continued; experimenters reported that approximately one-third of the guards exhibited genuine sadistic tendencies. Most of the guards were upset when the experiment concluded after only six days.

The experiment was intended to go on even longer than this. It was supposed to be 7-14 days, but:

The guards and prisoners adapted to their roles more than Zimbardo expected, stepping beyond predicted boundaries, leading to dangerous and psychologically damaging situations. One-third of the guards were judged to have exhibited "genuine sadistic tendencies", while many prisoners were emotionally traumatized; five of them had to be removed from the experiment early. After Maslach confronted Zimbardo and forced him to realize that he had been passively allowing unethical acts to be performed under his supervision, Zimbardo concluded that both prisoners and guards had become grossly absorbed in their roles and realized that he had likewise become as grossly absorbed in his own, and he terminated the experiment.

All of this occurred without some fantastic AI pulling the puppet strings and demanding performances. Just think of what we would do with your full scenario in place.

Answer 3

Interestingly in this case the AI doesn't hate them it just wants to be entertained and it's true that conflict is the basis of drama however conflict without context isn't very interesting.

If Frodo came from a slum in Gondor the LotR would be a far less compelling story, now lets say that's LotR is the scenario the AI is running, sure the shire could be written is as backstory but is that satisfying? If the AI is satisfied with illegitimate context then rather than putting the uncooperative humans through arbitrarily dramatic scenarios wouldn't it be easier to let them do whatever they want and construe its interpretation of events however it likes?

I think the AI would quickly grow tired of meaningless drama, you can only watch a team deathmatch for so long before you're not really invested in the outcome one way or the other. Whereas watching a group of people playing minecraft can be entertaining for hours and hours because events progress, personalities develop, relationships form and every conflict is enriched by the context of every conflict that occurred before it and may occur after.

I think the AI would eventually end up directing a soap opera / sitcom.