--- title: "MIT Will Let You Control a Real-Life Actor By Giving Them Commands" description: "MIT wants to allow internet users to give commands to a real-life hired actor on Halloween. Terrible idea or fascinating social experiment?" date: "2018-10-31" modified: "2018-10-31" authors: - name: "Victor Tangermann" job_title: "Senior Editor" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/victor" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/mit-control-real-life-actor-giving-commands" categories: - "Future Society" - "Virtual Reality" tags: - "internet control" - "mit" - "social experiment" - "the digest" --- # MIT Will Let You Control a Real-Life Actor By Giving Them Commands ![MIT wants to allow internet users to give commands to a real-life hired actor on Halloween. Terrible idea or fascinating social experiment?]() *\Image: Tag Hartman-Simkins\* ## Puppet Master Starting at 11pm today, MIT researchers are going to do something spooky — or possibly short-sighted. They're allowing people on the internet to control a real-life actor by giving them commands. The social experiment, called [BeeMe](), gives users a first-person perspective on what the actor is doing. The participant's suggested actions will be upvoted up- and downvoted, kinda like Reddit's voting system. ## Be Mine The MIT researchers want to explore how social interactions could translate into real life, according to [the project's website](). And before you draw the obvious conclusion that this is a terrible idea — it never seems to end well when we trust the internet with [anything]() —MIT has ruled out any suggestions that could be considered dangerous, undignified or privacy invading. "It will be really silly at first, kind of anarchic," Bernie Hogan, senior research fellow at the Oxford Internet Institute predicted in an [interview with]() the *BBC*. "Some people \[will\] get bored but some will stay." ## Game of Life Think of it more like an IRL game of [Twitch Plays Pokémon]()**,** a 2014 experiment where more than a million participants played a single game of Pokémon on a GameBoy emulator. But rather than catch Pokémon, the experiment will test the actor's willingness to follow the commands of strangers on the internet — a potential nightmare in the making. At least we respect them for trying. **Read More: [MIT invites you to control a human on Halloween]() \[BBC News\]** **More on social experiments: [Want to Change Society’s Views? Here’s How Many People You’ll Need on Your Side]()** ## Author I've been at Futurism since 2017, where my role has evolved to encompass design, writing, and increasingly editing. I've always been fascinated by space exploration and advanced transportation, which I've leaned into by interviewing luminaries in those fields while closely following the dimensions of policy and regulation that allow next-generation projects to succeed -- or, sometimes, to fail. I'm also keenly interested in the effects of generative AI on society, policies, and democratic institutions, as well as clean energy, physics and biology, and the vagaries of tech leadership. My work for Futurism has been cited by publications including Ars Technica, Gizmodo, PC Magazine, Jalopnik, Fox News, and the New York Post. I spent my childhood living in locations including Manila, the Philippines, and Geneva, Switzerland, attended McGill University, and now live in Toronto, Canada. Before Futurism I worked at AskMen and a small photography studio. In my free time, I'm an avid gardener, foodie, and craft beer lover, as well as a maker of artisanal hot pepper sauces. I have a magnificent dog named Freida. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()