Life After BOB
What if an AI could do the job of living your life better than you?
Ian Cheng’s «Life After BOB» is an episodic anime series built in the Unity game engine and presented live in real-time.
Neural engineer Dr. Wong has installed an experimental AI named BOB («Bag of Beliefs») into the nervous system of his 10-year-old daughter Chalice. Designed to guide Chalice through the challenges of growing up in a volatile world, BOB confronts more and more of the conflicts in Chalice’s life on her behalf. As Dr. Wong begins to favor the BOB side of his daughter, and as BOB threatens to do the job of living Chalice’s life better than she can, Chalice wonders: what is left for her classic human self to do?
«Life After BOB» imagines a future world in which the internet extends into our nervous system, psychotropic foods unify physical and psychic realities, AI entities are permitted to co-inhabit human minds, and anomie reigns. In episode one «The Chalice Study» neural engineer Dr. Wong has installed an experimental AI named BOB («Bag of Beliefs») into the nervous system of his 10-year-old daughter Chalice. Designed to guide Chalice through the challenges of growing up in a volatile world, BOB confronts more and more of the conflicts in Chalice’s life on her behalf. As Dr. Wong begins to favor the BOB side of his daughter, and as BOB threatens to do the job of living Chalice’s life better than she can, Chalice wonders: what is left for her classic human self to do?
