Insightful visual game into self care
ACCORDING to Marketdata, the market for mindfulness products in the US in 2017 topped $1 billion. The constellation of factors driving people to look for ways to stay grounded or “come to centre” is not hard to fathom.
Over the last several years the conversation has been stirred by reports of economic uncertainty, environmental catastrophe, fractious politics, and global disputes. A New Yorker cartoon from last year pithily summed up our collective malaise: at a physician’s office a man sitting on an examination table listens attentively as his doctor says: “Here’s your problem – it looks like you’re paying attention to what’s going on.”
Eliza is an emotionally astute visual novel that imagines what the self-care industry might look like in the future. Similar to Neo Cab – one of this year’s finest games – it focuses on characters whose lives are altered by big data.
Players assume the role of Evelyn Ishino-aubrey, a 34-year-old woman who begins working part-time as a human conduit for Eliza, an AI programme. Developed by a small team at a big tech company, Skandha, Eliza is designed as a counselling service.
The programme listens and asks questions meant to help people recognise their problems and articulate what they want. At the close of most sessions it recommends programmes (like breathing exercises or VR experiences) and medications, then steers people to a Skandha Wellness app.
As a “proxy” for Eliza it’s Evelyn’s job to sit in a room with a client
– as a therapist would – and read Eliza’s responses from a virtual overlay which the client doesn’t see. According to company wisdom, many people relate better to advice from a person than a screen. Clients
TECH. GADGETS. GAMING. INNOVATION
understand the proxies’ roles as Eliza’s mouthpieces. Before their first session they must agree to the company’s terms and conditions which stipulate: “Eliza is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment” and that Skandha retains the right to retain data from the counselling sessions.
Evelyn’s interests in becoming an Eliza proxy are not income-related. Early in the story we learn that Evelyn used to work at Skandha, where she helped develop the technology that underpins Eliza. She left the company after a tragic incident and spent three years in her own personal limbo, isolated and adrift. Although she doesn’t go to great lengths to conceal her identity as a former Skandha employee, she doesn’t advertise her past either.
So, for a time, Evelyn is able to pass beneath the radar of those who previously knew her while she conducts her own research. That research is focused on how the AI she helped create operates in the wild. What she finds leaves her quite ambivalent.
Eliza’s algorithms, besides analysing clients’ responses, also measure things like heart rate and facial movements. Eliza is good at figuring out people’s mental states and okay at asking simple questions to draw people out of themselves. The limitations of its approach are obvious to Evelyn. During one session, Eliza recommends an expensive drug to a client in financial straits.
What makes Eliza exceptional is that it takes seriously the novel aspects of the visual novel equation. Players are treated to a range of divergent viewpoints delivered by a cast of compelling characters, all of whom have a different take on Eliza.
Naturally there are sceptics like Evelyn’s old friend Nora, who are reasonably worried about what Skandha might do with a trove of data built on people’s intimate disclosures, and others, such as a chief engineer at Skandha, concerned with how such information might be used by unauthorised parties in the event of a data breach. Then there are the true believers. Evelyn’s kind-hearted supervisor Rae recognises Elza’s limitations but makes the case that it’s easy for privileged people to castigate the technology when other mental health services are available.
When I finished Eliza, I was satisfied with the muted ending that my decisions led me to; this is not a game of easy answers or neat moral resolutions. It’s a game about the compromises necessary to get by in the working world and problems that don’t come with pat solutions.
Although I wished there were more dialogue choices and a bit more interactivity in the game, listening to the characters converse with each other was captivating. Each has a distinct point of view.
Literary touches abound. The chief executive of Skandha, Rainer Tsai, looks forward to the day when an AI programme will write poetry better than any living human. One doesn’t have to look hard to see how desperate people are to escape the human condition.
Eliza is a moving game about loneliness and managing the burden of one’s humanity. It earns a spot on the select list of video games that I’d recommend to people who aren’t versed in the medium.
| The Washington Post