[euvin]

The idea of testing an agent with annoying situations, like uncooperative people or vague responses, makes me wonder if, in the future, similar approaches might be tried on humans. People could be (unknowingly) subjected to automated "social benchmarks" with artificially designed situations, which I'm sure I don't have to explain how dystopian that is.

It would essentially be another form of a behavioral interview. I wonder if this exists already, in some form?

[sumanyusharma]

I wonder if a more optimistic version of this could be used to train humans and improve their skills. I'm thinking along the lines of LeetCode / Project Euler, but more dynamic and personalized!

Few examples:

1) Customer service: Simulating challenging customer interactions could help reps develop patience and problem-solving skills.

2) Emergency responders: Creating realistic crisis scenarios (like 911 calls) that could improve decision-making under pressure.

3) Healthcare: Virtual patients with complex symptoms could speed up the learning rate for med students.

4) Conflict resolution: Practicing with difficult personalities could aid mediators and negotiators.

5) Sales: AI-simulated tough customers could help salespeople refine their pitches and objection-handling skills in a low-stakes environment.

Thoughts?

[euvin]

That does sound like an interesting idea. Upon further thought, I think that it would heavily depend on implementation.

In a bad case, I envision a ton of companies or institutions employing very strict & narrow situations to the point where they only accept a very homogenized personality. It could end up creating a stiff or worse culture than if they had naturally accumulated a diverse population, if that makes sense. Discrimination already exists, but would be made a lot easier, automated, and commonplace.

In a good case, extremely antisocial behavior (situations that are "softballs" or "hard to screw up for reasonable people") could be easily caught at scale and addressed an early age. Plus the cases you've listed, eliminating the need for special attention and mentorship from the limited people we meet irl.

I'm sure there are other horrible or amazing cases I'm missing.

So as all tools are, it would depend. Whether this will actually benefit more than harm will depend on the society you place it in, and I'm not sure I have that much faith in the corporate world.

[fakedang]

There's already a startup for the last use case. I forgot the name though.