{"id":2979,"date":"2017-11-21T16:00:18","date_gmt":"2017-11-21T16:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/futureconditional\/?p=2979"},"modified":"2017-11-21T14:48:04","modified_gmt":"2017-11-21T14:48:04","slug":"the-story-behind-the-story-eliza","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/futureconditional\/2017\/11\/21\/the-story-behind-the-story-eliza\/","title":{"rendered":"The story behind the story: eLiza"},"content":{"rendered":"

This week\u2019s Futures<\/a> story is\u00a0eLiza<\/a><\/em>\u00a0and it marks a welcome return for Aaron Moskalik. Last time, Aaron introduced us to the Ghosts in the machine<\/em><\/a>. This time, he\u2019s tackling a more sales-oriented issue. You can find out more about Aaron\u2019s work at his website<\/a>. Here he reveals what inspired his latest\u00a0tale \u2014 as ever, it pays to read the story first<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Writing eLiza<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

My wife, Val, and I share an Amazon and an Apple account. One side effect of this is I can tell what she is interested in buying just by looking at the ads appearing next to my online e-mail account. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI see you were shopping for portable power stations today.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe might need something to keep us going if the grid goes down.\u201d Val is ever the practical one.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0My mind tends to stray towards the bigger picture. \u201cIsn\u2019t it odd that search data from one account seem to appear in other places. It\u2019s almost as if there is just one Big Data out there.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Val made a face. \u201cThat\u2019s a bit creepy.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBut Big Data doesn\u2019t really get us, does it? I mean, it can\u2019t even tell we are two different people.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, so? Most door-to-door salesmen just read a script. The good ones have tricks to get you to yes, but they don\u2019t really know anything about us personally.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhat if they did, though? What if you combined the face-to-face of door-to-door with the personalized information of Big Data. What if the salesman knew exactly what buttons to push?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThat might make a good story. You should write that.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

I filed this thought away. A few days later I awoke from a dream. As the cobwebs faded, I was left with a sense of deep loneliness. I couldn\u2019t connect the feeling with anything real, so my mind went back to idea of the Big Data-aware salesman. What if he<\/i> could read my feelings and map them back to something real. What might he do with this ability?<\/span><\/p>\n

Or she. And so, eLiza<\/em> was born.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This week\u2019s Futures story is\u00a0eLiza\u00a0and it marks a welcome return for Aaron Moskalik. Last time, Aaron introduced us to the Ghosts in the machine. This time, he\u2019s tackling a more sales-oriented issue. You can find out more about Aaron\u2019s work at his website. Here he reveals what inspired his latest\u00a0tale \u2014 as ever, it pays to read the story first.  Read more<\/a> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":281,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2979","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-science-fiction"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/futureconditional\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2979","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/futureconditional\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/futureconditional\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/futureconditional\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/281"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/futureconditional\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2979"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/futureconditional\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2979\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/futureconditional\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/futureconditional\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/futureconditional\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}