The design of evil with Christopher Noessel

The following excerpt is transcribed from The Future Of Now event that took place on 25 February 2021.

Key points

Identifying exactly what makes something ‘evil’ can be challenging but finding patterns in evil interfaces is easier when looking at narratives, like those in Science Fiction.
There are two typical patterns that arise in evil interfaces: 1. Evil is red on black and 2. Evil is pointy.
We can look at two theories, Phonosemantics and Signalling theory, to help us better understand the typical patterns of evil.

Speaker

Christopher Noessel

Christopher is an AI designer at IBM. He teaches, speaks about, and evangelises design internationally. He is co-author of Make It So: Interaction Design Lessons from Science Fiction, co-author of About Face, 4th Edition, keeper of the blog scifiinterfaces.com, and author of Designing Agentive Technology: AI That Works for People. He also works with the Open Chain initiative to flight forced labor in Supply Chains.

What is evil?

Socrates: And does anyone desire to be miserable and ill-fated?
Meno: I suppose not.
Socrates: But if there is no one who desires to be miserable, there is no one, Meno, who desires evil; for what is misery but the desire and possession of evil?
Meno: That appears to be the truth, Socrates, and I admit that nobody desires evil.
— Meno by Plato

Identifying exactly what makes something ‘evil’ can be challenging. Yet we may find ourselves with the capacity to detect evil pretty accurately – whether it is based on intuition or observed cues. Regardless of what it may be, we can usually sense when something feels evil.

Fictional stories can provide a less obscure take on evil through unequivocally wicked characters (from Darth Vadar to Lord Voldemort) built on the foundation that there is a clear line that divides good and bad. Because of this, finding patterns in evil interfaces is easier when looking at narratives, like those in Science Fiction.

The patterns of evil

“I would not say that an interface is evil because of the way it looks. First, I want to look at what it does and how it is used, then declare it as evil [before looking] at the patterns.”
— Christopher Noessel

There are two typical patterns that arise in evil interfaces:

Evil is red on black – With a few exceptions (like a sickly green, or a calculated blue), most evil interfaces are primarily red on black and highly contrast; think the Sci-Fi movies of the 80’s and 90’s such as Star Wars and Tron.

Evil is pointy – Visually, evil is typically represented by pointy elements, like spikes, talons, stakes etc. This is not only seen on devices and interfaces but also on the biology of evil characters like Darth Maul or Spiderman’s infamous nemesis, Doctor Octopus.

This leads us to the question, ‘Why is evil high contrast, mostly red on black and pointy?’ To answer this, we look into two theories – Phonosemantics, and Signalling theory

Phonosemantics: The bouba/kiki effect

Phonosemantics is a school of thought that believes the sound of a word carries meaning. This can be observed in the bouba/kiki effect – originally through an experiment carried out by German psychologist, Wolfgang Köhler in 1929.

Upon showing people two different shapes – one rounded, the other sharp – Köhler asked them to identify which one was ‘takete’ (kiki) and which one was ‘malumba’ (bouba). Majority of the participants called the pointy shape, ‘takete’ and the round shape, ‘malumba’.

This finding has led to speculation that there may be a sensory and visual connection between the shape that we see and the shape our mouths make when we say the corresponding sound. This connection could explain why the sound ‘takete’ is more likely to be paired with the spiky shape and why ‘malumba’ would be paired with the rounder shape.

Signalling theory: Aposematism

Signalling theory observes evolutionary responses that explain patterns that reoccur in nature. Honest signals (i.e. warning calls) are traits and behaviours that openly warn predators to back off.

An example of honest signals is the aposematic warning signal – clear visual warnings that indicate traits like aggression and toxicity. Common colours that signal these traits are red, yellow, black, and white. Brighter, higher contrasting colours signal more toxicity.

The design of evil: Chris’ Conjecture

To delve deeper into the question of why evil is high contrast, mostly red on black and pointy, we can revisit the patterns of evil interfaces and gain insight through Chris’ connection of theory and observation.

Evil is red on black – While Aposematism tells us that red and black are colours used in nature to signal danger and toxicity to predators, they can also be used to symbolise ‘blood’ and ‘night’. Blood typically signifies a violent ordeal where something has gone wrong or there is danger lurking about. Similarly, darkness or night-time is also a typical symbol of danger or where dangerous things are. These patterns are repeated across cultures and translate from our experience of the world.

Evil is pointy – The bouba/kiki effect represents a more instinctual pattern that has been found to be independent of culture and language. Instinctively, we have evolved to understand that sharp objects like thorns, claws and teeth are dangerous and painful.

The pointy nature of evil signifies a more direct and physical danger that we react to, in a biological way.

Together, these patterns found in fictional narratives clearly display reliable signals of danger, pain and fear – all pointing to signs of evil.

Q&A

How are the principles of good and evil being applied to ambient interfaces?

CN: My familiarity with ambient information interfaces is from David Rose. He asserts that ambient interfaces are meant to fade into the background. This is in direct contrast to the signalling theory – which is supposed to get attention and then convey a message.

So I would say that, ambient interfaces can send signals that jump out and grab your attention when they need to (like a blinking red light), but they can’t simply exhibit those attributes constantly or they will fail in their ability to fade.

What to you is the next frontier of interfaces, how should we be prepared?

CN: This is a weird question because my world right now revolves around neuro-artificial intelligence and AI, but I also think the whole industry is talking about it. So I don’t want to say AI, because that’s where the world is now.

The thing that I’ve been examining most recently is Black Panther, and what I see in that film is a lot of brain control – in the sense that the user has control, not being controlled externally. So, in Black Panther, Okoye is flying a ship, and she has no interface. She just sits and meditates at the front and looks out the window. And she thinks about the way that she wants the ship to behave, and it obeys her.

And the thing that’s kind of troubling about brain interfaces is number one, it’s going to kill my blog, because there won’t be anything for me to talk about. But number two is that it really over-promises on individual or idiosyncratic interfaces. If I’m going to operate Photoshop with my brain, I might be thinking about a green dog, but you might be thinking of a purple kangaroo, or a wombat. This then becomes problematic not from an individual perspective, because it may work perfectly for the individual, but as a community of practice. We suddenly have to have really weird conversations about processes of thinking and that’s a force against a community of practice. We don’t talk about those a lot, but that’s a lot of how information is built and exchanged and how we join those communities of practices, manage them, mentor them, and step out of them is how the world works when it comes to large scale initiatives.

So I know brain computer interfaces are coming and I am a little bit troubled by it even though it will bring a lot of magic to the world then.

What would you consider is the most evil interface?

CN: If we take a look at a denotative definition of evil, meaning ‘what interface most embodies these principles that I have laid out to you’ – high contrast red on black and pointy – I think that the Klingon Bird-of-Prey is the most evil or exemplary of those patterns. However, if you take a look at a utilitarian ethics perspective, you would have to ask, “Well, what interface has done the most harm to the most people deliberately?” That would be a utilitarian evil. And I would say that the tempting answer is the Infinity Gauntlet, because it has the broadest scope, and it just arbitrarily killed half the living creatures in the universe. But I don’t think it’s clear in the film that this is the only use for this interface, even though that’s the only use Thanos had to construct it. So, I’m not going to say it is the Infinity Gauntlet even though it does the most damage.

For my money, I think the thing that does the most deliberate damage is the Starkiller Base from the Star Wars universe. That was the one where, instead of killing one planet, it now kills five at once. That is a significant amount of evil that occurs all at once and does the most damage to the most people. So, that is probably the most evil Sci-Fi interface.

When we turn around and ask that same question about the real world, it gets more complicated. Partially because if you find things that sort of signal that they are evil, and they’re corporate, it becomes more along the lines of ‘bad boy branding’. Like Monster Energy, for example. They’re not really advocating evil.

A pretty firm version of evil might be seen in a gun catalogue, where they are trying to valorise gun usage without acknowledging the problems that countries, like America, have with its gun laws. But that’s more like an honest signal, and honest signals aren’t that dangerous. You just have to learn them, and know what to do with them.

It’s the dishonest signals that are really troubling. Facebook was a platform that was immediately mentioned in the chat, but that interface could be an example of dishonest signals, where it paints itself as not only benign, but also rewarding. You might be able to engage with your social network through that interface, but the consequences of that engagement require you to step out of the platform and think about the effect this has on things like, misinformation delivery, and whether the interface is optimising merely for fury or happiness rather than what is good. So, it is those brands and those interfaces that try to signal friendliness, but don’t give any hints about the ultimate consequences of their use that really troubled me.

I’m not gonna say Facebook is the most evil. I know several people who work there, and I think they try really hard, but some of the choices that are made from how it operates and what its effect is, needs some rethinking.

How do you apply a sense of good and nobility in your work?

CN: I should say that I am not speaking on behalf of IBM in my presence here, but I don’t think I would ever encourage a brand to try and signal goodness. Partially because goodness is something that you earn, not that you declare, and the declaration of goodness is suspicious in the real world, right? Because, of course, everyone wants to be perceived as good, but that trust needs to be earned.

I work for a branch of IBM that produces supply chain software, and the brand is handled by people outside of my group with a system called the carbon design system.

One thing that I really like about the carbon design system is that it conveys neutrality. So its virtues are that it is transparent, that it gives information, and that it can help our customers get more efficient and produce less waste. But I would definitely be suspicious of it and take it as a bad sign if it was glowing blues and pinks.

I think that in the real world, earning trust is more important than selling trust, or goodness.

More about Chris Noessel:

Check out the Sci Fi Interfaces on their Website and on Twitter
Follow Chris on LinkedIn and Twitter
Read Chris’ books

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