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People use their bodies when they talk—a lot. For example, we change our posture, move our head, gesture with our arms and hands, and use facial expressions to convey different things. In other words, visual signals form an essential part of human communication, at least in many cultures.
It is the year 2049. We now co-exist with artificial intelligence. Human-like agents are completely integrated into our society and work regular jobs. They act and look fully human. Like in the dystopian movie ‘Blade Runner’, inspired by Philip K. Dick’s novel ‘Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?’, or the more recent TV series ‘Westworld’, the humanoids can imitate all the outward signals we attribute to consciousness, and appear entirely self-aware. In other words, we have reached the point in time at which technological growth becomes uncontrollable and irreversible, resulting in unforeseeable changes to human civilization.
Spotting a fake smile can be more difficult than you think. Although humans are wired to be social, most people are actually surprisingly bad at recognizing whether a smile is authentic.
Imagine your laptop screen keeps freezing, the video of your friend or colleague suddenly lags and their speech sounds like a robot. You want to talk, but you are not sure about when to start your turn in conversation. There is an awkward silence. The screen turns black.
