Could the Last of Us bring out the Best of Us?
<p>Imagine you read a stranger’s comment on Twitter or Facebook that annoyed you so much you wanted to reply.</p>
<p>Perhaps it was from someone spreading an outlandish conspiracy theory about 5G or falsely claiming refugees were all given luxury homes.</p>
<p>The moment you started to type a response a frame appeared on the side of the screen, casually informing you of some details you and this stranger had in common. You might both have a daughter the same age, a grandparent from the same town, or donated to the same charities, or supported the same football club, or wished they would bring back the same TV series. It could be a detail that was even more obscure.</p>
<p>Such information might not deter you from replying, but could it change the tone of your response? Might it make the other person seem a bit more human?</p>
<p>That was my idea for a simple “empathy machine”. It was a concept I semi-jokingly suggested to friends in the pub a few years ago that could be a plug-in for social media sites. Its goal would be to harness AI and the scary amounts of data that tech giants store on us to make online discussions more civil and constructive. As a bonus it could also help check if the person you were replying to was real.</p>
<p><a href="https://mrmichaelshaw.medium.com/could-the-last-of-us-brings-out-the-best-of-us-fcb4c75ff0c3"><strong>Learn More</strong></a></p>