User-User (Agent-Agent)

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CHAPTER 6

USER-USER (AGENT-AGENT)

Introduction: The Electronically (Re)Constituted Agent

“In space, no one can hear you scream” (advertisement for the movie Alien)

“On the internet, no one knows you’re a dog” (advertisement for national ISP)

Burke’s conceptualization of the “agent-agent ratio” in his Grammar of Motives focuses upon the class of “constitutions,” or “commands addressed” from agents, to other agents. The scope here is to employ Searle’s concept of speech and language as action and interaction, extending beyond “constitutions” and “commands” into a fuller range of language acts between and among individuals, specifically individuals and groups of internet users. Speech-act theory includes directives – Burke’s “thou shalts” – but is not limited to only this one kind of illocutionary utterance. Researchers are starting to study the cognitive aspects of internetworked symbolic action between users, and coming up with some data that supports the Burkean distinction between man and machine, that man’s use of technology creates symbolic action, whereas the machine on its own, even driven by sophisticated (man-created) software, is still only capable of mere motion. Philip A. Thompsen in his study of emotional reactions and flaming on the internet, proposes that a useful approach is to consider employing ideas from Fulk, Schmitz, and Steinfeld’s (1990) social influence model of technology use. The premise of Fulk, et. al. is that “social influence may be exerted in at least four ways: (a) direct statements by others, (b) vicarious learning from others, (c) group norms, and (d) social definitions of rationality” (Thompsen 1996, p. 305). Although Thompsen points out that social influence is not necessarily limited to these four types of symbolic action, the framework provides a helpful device for “understanding the impact of social influence” (p. 305). Thompsen’s interest is specifically centered in flaming behaviors, but he also points out that these frameworks are helpful in understanding social interaction on the internet.

Extension of the Burkean System: Who We Think We Are

In the “beginning” was Turing and his much-acclaimed and also much-ridiculed “Test” of artificial intelligence, and so we start, once again, with the agency, the silicon “instrument” separating us from “natural” interaction.

Researchers Edward K. Sadalla, Douglas Kenrick, Jonathan Butner, Brad Sagarin (2000) in the Psychology department at Arizona State University conducted an as yet unpublished study designed to determine whether or not the Turing Test would generate false negative results. Subjects in one part of the study were told that they were going to engage in a ten-minute online chat session with an unknown partner, and that afterward they would be asked whether they had been interacting with another human being, or with an artificial intelligence (AI) computer program. Although all of the subjects had in fact been conversing with human partners, forty-six percent of the subjects indicated they believed that they had been conversing with a computer (unpublished study, 2000).

While the researchers rightly speculate that modern computer users have an exaggerated conception of what computers are capable of doing, I would also suggest that many people are unaware of how heavily ritualized and conventionalized the normal, mundane conversation between strangers in the U.S. has become. Robbed of nonverbal cues, most of us might be shocked at first to see how sparse and unremarkable our everyday chatter really is.

Sometimes when the users at the other end of the electronic highway send messages, the machines and the screens in between seem to melt away. There is love on the internet, and it isn’t all illicit or dark in nature. There are, for example, many "wikkets," and many "alices."

Narrative Demonstrations of the User-User (Agent-Agent)

Dramatic Site of Internetworked Symbolic Action

Love and Meeces to Pieces

Long ago and far away, in a channel called #Just_to_Chat, Alice Cole and Stan Labatte – also known as “alicedrms” and “wikket” – got married (Debare, 1995). I was there. That is, I was there online. It was not a “role-play” wedding, not a hoax, not pretend. They really sat in front of their computers, in Sacramento, California, in a room with their online and real-life friend Wick Oliver (“Rainstorm”) at a third computer to officiate, various friends and relatives in attendance (including Stan’s brother, “lilbro”), and best man Jay (“Grinch”) logged on from Pennsylvania. Once all the cables and connections were in place, and everyone was online, they made their vows. After the niceties, amenities, mood-setting description of the bride and groom, and introductory message from the presiding Official, the deed was done:

<wikket> jay may I have the ring please ??

*Grinch hands Stan the ring

<wikket> thanks

<Grinch> :-)

<RainStorm> Stan, would you place and hold the ring on the ring finger of Alice’s left hand and repeat after me:

<RainStorm> I give you this ring to wear as a symbol and pledge of my constant faith for you and enduring love for you.

<wikket> I give you this ring to wear as a symbol and pledge of my constant faith for you and enduring love for you.

<RainStorm> Alice, would you place and hold the ring on the ring finger of Stan’s left hand and repeat after me:

<RainStorm> I give you this ring to wear as a symbol and pledge of my constant faith for you and enduring love for you.

*Grinch hands Alice the ring

<alicedrms> I give you this ring to wear as a symbol and pledge of my constant faith for you and enduring love for you.

<RainStorm> Forasmuch as Stan and Alice have consented together in marriage,

declaring their love for one another, they are now husband and wife.

…..

<RainStorm> BY THE VIRTUE OF THE AUTHORITY VESTED IN ME AS

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER OF CIVIL MARRIAGES, I NOW PRONOUNCE

THAT YOU ARE HUSBAND AND WIFE.

<RainStorm> you may kiss the bride

[a brief channel silence—Alice and Stan are later teased for not “typing” a kiss

for the online attendees. Stan’s brother marshalls his computer momentarily]

<lilbro> yeahhhhh

(Channel Log, October 14, 1995)

The last I heard, Stan and Alice were still together. Rainstorm and I took the 1-hour yacht-cruise around the San Francisco Bay in June of 1999, and talked about Stan, Alice, Grinch, and various other friends from #Just_to_Chat. We also talked about Aly and Joe.

* * *

The Ballad of Aly and Joe – Notes from the Electronic Underground

A 14-year old user who called herself "Aly" often allowed her 40-ish uncle "Joe," to use her internet connection. Aly frequented a normally pleasant, popular, family-oriented channel on the Undernet IRC (Internet Relay Chat) network. Over a period of 2 months, she had become a more and more frequent presence in the channel. She told various regular users that she was a) online so much because she was homebound, as a result of b) a tragic car crash that c) had left her in a wheelchair with 2 broken legs. I came along after an absence from this particular channel of several months, found that the channel regulars and operators were enamored with this kid, and immediately an alarm went off in my head.

I continued to watch her lively channel banter, and soon sent a message to one of the channel users I had known for over a year and communicated with in chat, email, and occasionally by phone. He is a computational linguist (Ph.D.) in England. I told him that people who have recently broken both their legs do NOT "pop wheelies" in their wheelchairs, even if they are 14 years old and very chipper and brave. That, and other things, didn't ring true. He told me I must be mistaken....so I dropped the subject.

Meanwhile, another user who called herself "D0na" had developed a crush on "Joe." Joe and Aly were never online at the same time, because Joe only had access to the net through Aly's account, and her provider did not allow more than one log-on at a time, per account (there was some confusion about whether or not Joe had his own computer at his own apartment). D0na and Joe planned to meet. Joe lived in the Boston, Massachusetts area near his niece Aly. D0na lived in northern California. Everyone liked Joe. Everyone was happy for D0na, who had weathered some painful break-ups over the past year or so. Their relationship deepened. Joe could not talk to D0na on the phone because of his throat cancer...his voice was inoperative. They made marriage plans. Their face-to-face (“f2f”) meeting was imminent. On the day he was to fly to San Francisco, D0na got no email from him. She showed up online, trying to find Aly or Joe to find out where to meet him.

For two days D0na was confused and hurt...wondering if Joe was ok. Then Aly showed up to give D0na and everyone else who was logged on the bad news: Joe had died. D0na was on the phone with a female user, in tears, and I logged on about 15 minutes after the bad news had been announced in the channel. I watched the channel scroll chatter for maybe 20 minutes as regulars logged on and joined one by one in the shock and sadness. I was chatting in private message windows with a couple of the users in this channel. My friend in England was one of them, and after collecting enough messages to make a persuasive try at convincing him there was more wrong than a death in the online "family," I messaged him to say something smelled bad. (Of course, you say, something is fishy, and these people are so gullible....yes?)

The circumstances of Joe's death came to me in snippets from 3 users and the open channel. One user told me privately that Aly had said he died at home and was found 24 hours later. Another user told me privately that Aly had said Joe died in the hospital, that she (Aly) had ridden in the ambulance with him (how did she get to his house? did she wheel herself into the ambulance?), and that she had sung to him in the hospital as he lay dying.

D0na immediately made flight reservations via the web to attend the funeral in Boston. Upon hearing this, Aly insisted that no, Joe's body had already been flown to Italy for burial in the family's ancestral hometown (even though he had been in the hospital either DOA or dying that very morning). D0na said fine, she would fly to Italy...needless to say Aly sputtered and

logged off.

Meanwhile, another user, alerted by me, the one who had been on the phone with D0na, called the Boston hospitals, and DID find the name that Joe had said was his real name, but was told that the real Joe was 75 years old, was dying of terminal (but not mouth/throat) cancer, and was an outpatient; yes, he was still alive. Yes, the name Aly had said was her real name did appear on a candy striper list from earlier that year.

The husband of the woman who called the hospitals (they live in Sacramento) drove D0na to the airport in SF. D0na flew to Boston. She found Aly's house (I don't know how). Aly's parents were shocked when a strange, emotionally over-wrought woman appeared at their door, and had no knowledge of a relative named "Joe" -- or any other adult male who used their daughter's computer account. They did allow D0na to meet Aly, and I don't know much else. Garbled third-hand (but possibly reliable) information suggested that Aly had a 16-year old girlfriend who had typed most of "Joe's" messages for several weeks before Aly got nervous and killed him off, so to speak.

Probably, no one will ever know Aly’s motive for disrupting the lives of people online to the extent that her little role-playing game in a non-role-playing environment effectively killed the community. Four years after the “Aly and Joe incident,” the channel still stands open there on Undernet IRC, with a bot in place to keep the lights on and the door open …. But nobody is there.

* * *

Illocutionary Acts and Too Much Honesty: (Interview with a Vampire?)

An example of “user-user interface clash” comes in the persona of Skydvr32, an IRC user who openly admits he uses the internet as one of many instruments by means of which he intends to find the Woman of his Dreams. Skydvr32 (“Sky” for short) announced brazenly to me one day over coffee (in person, that is) that “I can talk to a woman—or someone pretending to be a woman—for over 10 minutes, without typing a word. Sometimes longer.” He admitted using “popups” or pre-written lines of chat text to “weed out” women who were not his “type:”

When I began to notice that female users in various channels were irritated with him, labeling him a “jerk” and all around “not nice guy,” I began to wonder about this ‘reputation’ he had earned, especially since I knew him personally (“In Real Life") to be an extremely personable, thoughtful, and courteous man. I also had seen many of his “popup” conversation scripts, and contrary to what I had imagined from the grouchy female users who disliked him, I found them to be pleasant, polite conversation-starters. The only sense I could make of the women’s disgruntlement with him, was in going back to the same old problem of diversity in online user motives. If Sky were looking for a real woman, to be his “real life” partner, perhaps the women who felt negatively about him were using the online chat channels for role-play or leisure activities. Sky had no time or inclination for developing a “virtual life.” He was hunting for Ms. Right, was willing to drive or fly thousands of miles – and had done so – trying to find her, and anyone he talked to was informed of this in no uncertain terms.

I asked Sky if he thought the text of his popup biographical information (a.k.a. “the bio”) about himself were Fact or Fiction. He responded,