Dopamine And AI, Part 1
People who read my pieces know that an underlying theme of many of my articles concerns human behavior; what influences people and how, especially in large groups. Apart from direct physical coercion, it turns out that the things that people choose to do out of their own free will has much to do with a hormone and a type of neurotransmitter called Dopamine. It’s explained as a sort of chemical messenger, made in our brains and according to WebMD…
“… It plays a large role in determining how we feel towards pleasure and rewards. It’s a big part of our unique human ability to think and plan. It helps us focus, work towards goals and find things interesting…”
So, among other things, Dopamine determines what makes things pleasurable for us. Some basic examples would be the smell of morning coffee or a bakery, or the smell of a baby to their parents. It could be a warm towel after a bath, or the throaty sound of a sports car or a favorite piece of music. Even the anticipation of these things will trigger pleasurable responses in people. This knowledge has been harnessed for years by corporations marketing any and all sorts of things to the public. By being able to access people’s Dopamine triggers, people will feel the need to purchase their products in order to get their hit of Dopamine and thus, pleasure. In a 2003 study by Paul Phillips and some colleagues at the University of North Carolina, they found that rats would experience a spike of Dopamine when they were only anticipating hitting a lever that would give them a jolt of pleasure.
This study led to many other researchers giving insights into the role of Dopamine and addictive behavior in humans. The commercial harnessing of this hormonal feature has been key in the success of many successful consumer companies in the past decade. Think about people’s recent generational addiction to their phones. Think about the joy of hitting the buy button for an online purchase and once again when the Amazon or UPS truck pulls up. The actual item purchased is irrelevant since very shortly, the consumer will be back at it, looking for the next ‘reward’. Think about addictions to gaming, to online porn, to gambling. In all of these cases, the anticipation of the event triggers Dopamine surges to the brain. One of the best exploitations of this weakness in people are lottery tickets. Very few people actually win the big prize, but small inconsequential ‘wins’ are enough to encourage people to buy them again and again, the same formula as in casinos. Even though they’re unlikely to win, reports of someone winning a big prize is enough to trigger even more buying.
The rise of the popularity of day trading is very much related to the Dopamine hits received by day traders collecting numerous small wins even while losing net in the long term. The action is the drug.
This phenomenon is also employed with something as benign as music. It’s not a coincidence that in many retail businesses that encourage shopping, certain targeted music is played to increase the Dopamine hit for shoppers. If you’re in an upbeat mood, presumably, you’re more inclined to spend. By late November, most retail stores will have Mariah Carey on a loop singing “All I want for Christmas”, although in this case, it may actually be counter-productive.
This knowledge of human behavior leads us into the more focused use of Dopamine effects….pairing with Artificial Intelligence. I will discuss this further in the upcoming part 2 of this theme and of its relevance to Artificial Intelligence.