«It's a tulpa»: a blitz interview with Nikolay Dybowski about Franz
You can find the original text for Skillbox here
Initially, it might seem that Franz as a game is about an AI, but this is not the case at all. Even comparisons with the Black Mirror TV series are inappropriate here.The essence of the new game from the creators of Pathologic 2 is difficult to understand, but we tried to figure it out in a conversation with the head of the studio Nikolay Dybowski.– What stage of development is Franz at now and when will the game be released?
The game has been finished for a few months now, and no changes have been made to it. Right now, we’re in the process of making a decision on how to represent it in the app marketplaces. It's quite an unusual thing, and it's hard to meet the requirements and the modern standards of mobile applications. This applies to visual design, categorization, and distribution models.
– Where did that name «Franz» come from? Was it Kafka?
Such questions are always difficult to answer... A word just comes to mind – a name, a title – and you realize that it is the right one. Sometimes you're even surprised at it yourself. As if someone else decided it for you, and you were just confronted with the fact. Imagine that a dog just came into your house, now it’s going to live with you, accept it. You can try to exert willpower, paint that dog as a zebra and start feeding it hay, but what good will it make? Anyway, I thought that this name is a good fit for an otherworldly creature, which itself does not really know how to use neither names, nor their own body, nor they themself as a whole.
– And why is Franz female?
It isn’t really female. It's a tulpa. It’s just that I personally imagined Franz as a female, it made things more relatable for me. But other people, on the contrary, tend to speak of this creature as a male – for example, the writer Linor Goralik, with whom we had collaborated a bit on this project.
– It seems like the main theme of the game is abuse. Is there something personal here or is it just that this idea was in the air, and you grabbed it?
It’s certainly not the main theme. The game's overall theme is the contact with the otherworldly and how it can develop. That's something that's really been on my mind for a long time. And yes, you could say that it's deeply personal. Such contacts, in my opinion, are inevitably fraught with danger, probably, probably that is why those relationships are shaping up like that: toxic, tense, nerve-racking.
Abuse is a vague and imprecise concept (just open the Wikipedia article and be astonished). It has an intuitive cloud of meaning – but in everyday speech, this word is often used to label any form of partner's behavior that hurts or offends others in some way, from open aggression to passive resistance to one’s desires. If someone is comfortable using such a label (for it surely makes everything plain and simple) – I suppose they will undoubtedly see in Franz exactly what they expected.
And as for the ideas in the air, the original idea behind Franz has been influenced the most by the growing public interest in cognitive biases and distortions.
– As I understand, it's a kind of a voice assistant type app, only it's... not really helpful, but frightful. Something straight out of a Black Mirror episode? Or is it our harsh reality with the advances of ChatGPT?
It's more like an app in the form of a virtual pet. And treating a creature that is capable of responding to your actions like a pet... you were just talking about abusive relationships, right? Abusive relationships (if it is appropriate to use this term at all) are rarely equal. Usually someone dominates in those relationships, no matter in what form. Remember Dostoevsky: «Love is a feeling that gives one person the right to torture another with impunity». So, that’s why the idea of the virtual pet piqued my interest: precisely because it was not quite clear who exactly dominates and controls the other. At first, one party considers themself as the master. That is probably what led some of the testers to see an «abusive theme» in everything.
But that's nothing like Black Mirror. AI has nothing to do with it. And you don't need an AI to truly frighten someone – a person can do it all by themselves.
– Have you used neural networks in your work? And if so, in what form?
- I've been playing around with different chatbots in Telegram like «Hello, stranger!». Is that the essence of Franz? Or is it more complicated than that?
These are related forms, of course, except Franz isn't a bot. She reads the player's reactions and, we think, programs them in a certain way. We were surprised at how little it takes to program a person to behave in a certain way. The well-known white bear problem is a pretty clear example of such a suggestion. Sometimes it even happens unintentionally.
But, of course, it is worth resisting against this. The main thing is to avoid the pitfall of recursion.
– Are you afraid of ChatGPT and its rapid development? How do you think our industry will change because of it over time? In particular, the narrative side of work? Neural networks are already being built into games, it's just that they don't have enough computing power yet.
Not afraid at all. On the contrary, it's extremely interesting. It's a long-awaited historical challenge, just like Toynbee wrote. Any challenge to mental abilities is probably the most useful thing that can happen for an individual and for civilization as a whole. And the more serious it is, the better.
The task of an «asymmetric response» to a challenge for a mediocre, philistine creativity (I suggest not to see derogatory connotations in these words right now) is very non-trivial.
– You can make a ChatGPT bot in Telegram, assign a role to it (specify in detail who it should impersonate) and converse with it. It is probably even possible to imitate Franz in this way. Is Franz (the app) in any way similar to this?
Not sure if you can do it in Telegram yet, but the question is clear. I've already said that we are more interested in the player than in whatever communicates with them on the other end. Who cares if it's God, a human, or an algorithm? It matters not – it’s you that you should think about in the first place.
Remember how much stress and anxiety there was at the dawn of the Internet: «The person on the other side of a screen can be anyone! Someone writes that he is a young girl, but in fact he is a troll with a beard! How are you supposed to control it?» You don't. Do you think we have significantly more control if we can see the appearance and know the name of someone on the other end? Nothing of the sort! It's just that more stereotypes come to dominate us, and the illusion of alleged control makes our behavior even more predictable, banal, and often destructive.
– Will Franz have access to the phone’s contacts? To push notifications? What can she even do with your phone and how does that fit with your privacy policy?
Can we please not give an answer to that question just yet? :) But don't worry, the app marketplaces are very sensitive and strict about such things. They guard the interests of their users with a keen eye.
– What happens if you ignore Franz? I'm sure I'll have a fight with her and ignore her. Should I be afraid of her retaliation?
That's a perfectly valid reaction. It's one pattern of behavior – a refusal to make a decision. It’s not like you have to look at Schrodinger's cat. And as for retaliation... Well, that depends on what you would consider retaliation. Of course, we won't stoop to scary campfire stories, that's just silly, and not particularly scary. Is an incomplete tulpa good or bad? Can a missed opportunity be considered a punishment? I don't know the answer. Like I said, a person can do it all by themselves.
– Approximately how long is the game designed to be played for? And how does it actually work with time? Can Franz disappear for a day and then come back with a push notification?
She can. And as for playing time – it's not too long until the key decision moment. From there it's up to you to decide what you want to do with it and how long you intend to keep something like that with you.
– How would you characterize her personality?
It's a moderately distorting mirror. What will be reflected there in each particular case is completely beyond our reach and control.