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For better or worse, the unprogrammed chaos of our minds is one of the things that makes us human.
What's the first thing you think about when hearing the term OCD?
What's the first thing you think about when hearing the term OCD?
For many people, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is automatically equivalent to being intensely organised or perfectionistic, but that's only the easy-to-spot aspect of this mental struggle. Although it's the first letter in the acronym, the "O" is often overlooked - the obsessive intrusive thoughts that cause so many of us to spiral into inescapable loops.
This behaviour is something human minds can't help, and at this point in time, machines can't mimic.
...just tell your brain to shut up?
...just tell your brain to shut up?
If we were to think of intrusive thoughts like bugs in code, for most people they'd be ones you can simply ignore and hope for the best. In the case of OCD patients, however, these errors seem so crucial that they send the program into an infinite loop - a convincement that the issue is not just important, but catastrophic. So in short, no, telling your brain to stop unfortunately doesn't work.
There are many potential causes of such glitches in our mental matrix, with research identifying two main categories: reactions to external stimuli and distressing or taboo notions [1]. Despite our vast knowledge of the subject and statistics which show that in 2022, approximately 3% of the population was affected by this disorder [2], my deep dive into the portrayal of OCD in the world of artificial creatures uncovered surprisingly little.
Regardless, the few examples I could find are the perfect place to start our exploration.
Elisa-3 [3]
Elisa-3 [3]
Back in 2019, Lewis, Fineberg and Cañamero developed a robot model of OC-spectrum disorders that led to the creation of Elisa-3. This very tiny machine is programmed to simulate the compulsive need for order, making decisions based on its environment and internal states. In experiments, the robot would clean endlessly, even if it caused it harm in situations such as bumping into surrounding objects.
eMotion [4]
eMotion [4]
Another example is eMotion, the robotic arm developed by Michael Zhou, a creative technologist from Brooklyn. In a similar fashion to Elisa-3, this artificial creature simulates the unexplainable need for perfect organisation, only this time in terms of the alignment of objects. Using servo motors, the arm is programmed to tirelessly move a cube back to the place it was supposed to be. Sometimes, out of frustration with this looping task, it displays unexpected behaviour such as smashing the cube.
From the perspective of both these machines, we can gather some fascinating insight about this notion of creatureness, namely that it is an uncontrollable need created by our own minds that we believe we have to fulfill regardless of difficulty or even potential harm - and of course, we might get angry with ourselves for this matter.
What's the common denominator between this two artificial creatures?
You guessed it - it's compulsion.
While in art, countless exhibitions have chosen intrusive thoughts as their theme, there's a very significant gap in the portrayal of this element of human nature in the realm of artificial creatures. It's true that chatbots can generally help people in dealing with such issues and an honourable mention here goes to Pax [5], the OCD bot, created by the IntrusiveThoughts NGO. Talkie [6], a random chatbot I found on the internet, takes this one step further by providing users with a voice-enabled AI that tells you your worst possible obsessive thoughts.
Although both are very interesting creations, neither bridge the gap in the state-of-the-art in a satisfactory way, as they either constitute tools of managing OCD or have a rather forced take on the subject. This is where NervOS comes through.
NervOS: my own take on the OCD artificial creature
NervOS: my own take on the OCD artificial creature
Welcome to the intrusion protocol. Since a reactive robot is rather difficult to create, I'll focus on predefined events: recognising the laughter of people for instance. When the artificial creature senses this stimulus, its LED eyes will shift in colour, indicating obsessive spiralling mode. It will then start rotating through lines such as "is it me they're laughing at?", "don't they like me?", "what if no one likes me?" - an escalation of proportions for someone, a routine conversation with oneself for others. Users can then interact with the robot in simple forms, such as by touching its hand or pressing a "reassurance" button, which will bring the robot back to its calm state, and the LED eyes will change colour again.
Steering away from the obvious choice of robots, NervOS can take on many forms - it could even be a simple anthropomorphised mirror. Taking inspiration from the concept of the Erised mirror from Harry Potter, but completely turning it around, the public can see their reflections progressively distorted as more intrusive thoughts stem from a speaker hidden behind it. To make this mirror a creature in itself, I envision it having cartoon-like facial expressions projected onto it. It's not your deepest desires that are shown back to you, but rather your worst insecurities spiralling to the point of obsession.
The aim of such an artificial creature would be to be striking, to put people who don't experience such struggles in the position of being engulfed by it - raising awareness in the most personal way.
References
Patrick, A. K., Ramsey, K. A., Essoe, J. K., & McGuire, J. F. (2023). Clinical Considerations for an Evidence-Based Assessment for Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. The Psychiatric clinics of North America, 46(1), 17–38. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psc.2022.10.001
Lewis, M., Fineberg, N., & Cañamero, L. (2019). A robot model of OC-Spectrum Disorders: design framework, implementation, and first experiments. Computational Psychiatry, 3(0), 40. https://doi.org/10.1162/cpsy_a_00025
Zhou, M. (2022, January 30). Final: eMotion: The OCD Robot — Michael’s ITP blog. Michael’s ITP Blog. https://www.michaelzhou.news/ok-robot-reboot/emotion
Berry, L., & Laskey, B. (2012). A review of obsessive intrusive thoughts in the general population. Journal of Obsessive-Compulsive and Related Disorders, 1(2), 125–132. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jocrd.2012.02.002
Cassidy, E. (2023, November 7). This chatbot wants to help you understand your intrusive thoughts. The Mighty. https://themighty.com/topic/obsessive-compulsive-disorder-ocd/pax-chatbot-obsessive-compulsive-disorder-ocd-intrusive-thoughts/
Talkie. (n.d.). Chat with Intrusive thoughts - Enjoy Free AI Character Voice Chat | Talkie AI | intrusive thoughts. https://www.talkie-ai.com/chat/intrusive-thoughts-140277961863336
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