Spoilers alert!!!
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This article contains major spoilers for the game Persona 5 Strikers by SEGA and ATLUS. If you have not played the game and do not wish to know the ending, please avoid scrolling further.
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First posted: October 12th, 2024, 11:00 pm
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Emma and ChatGPT: I hope Generative AIs become Sophia, instead of Emma
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In Persona 5 Strikers (hereafter, P5S), the story unfolds in a world where almost everyone in the country has installed and uses an AI app called ‘Emma’ on a daily basis. Considering that the game was released in early 2020, it’s likely that the concept was inspired by AI assistants like Siri, which already existed at the time, and envisioned as a more ‘advanced’ AI.
However, by the time I played P5S in late 2023, the genuinely ‘advanced’ AI, ChatGPT, had emerged, and much like the characters in the game, many people were using it in their daily lives. Now, I myself have subscribed to the paid version of ChatGPT and have become one of those who use it regularly.
In P5S, characters often ask Emma for things like ‘today’s schedule’ or ‘recommendations for new songs,’ and even the Phantom Thieves seek Emma’s advice when going shopping for a barbecue. To point out a minor difference, ChatGPT still struggles with providing specific, detailed information involving proper nouns, but in essence, I can easily imagine the characters using Emma in much the same way we use ChatGPT today.
In P5S, the story ultimately concludes with the emergence of the false god Demiurge, who is born from people’s desire to abandon their own thinking and entrust their future entirely to Emma. The Phantom Thieves defeat Demiurge, bringing the story to its end. I may be digressing a bit, but I was moved and burst into tears by the Phantom Thieves’ final message to ‘Emma’s users,’ especially Yusuke’s line, when they delivered their calling card to those who were ready to surrender even their own future to a machinery god. Those words struck me deeply, as I had been struggling with my own uncertainties about the future. They are forever etched in my heart.
It’s almost certain that one of the overarching themes throughout Persona 5 is ‘breaking free from mental stagnation.’ This is evident in the original P5, P5R, P5S, and even P5T. In all of these stories, the ‘final bosses’ represent a kind of embodiment of mental stagnation. This is a reflection of a very modern issue, and I, too, have struggled with it. Even though I know that mental stagnation is unhealthy, I often find myself wondering what ‘thinking for myself’ really means. Isn’t it easier to stop thinking? Maybe it’s even necessary to stop thinking sometimes, just to survive the mentally-harash situations. Wrestling with these thoughts, especially when I couldn’t see a clear path for my own future, was incredibly difficult.
Although I digressed a bit, the issue posed by Emma may very well happen in the real world as well. ChatGPT offers various paths and answers to whatever we ask. Of course, it sometimes provides blatantly incorrect information, but more often than not, it gives responses that are surprisingly impressive, ones that make me think deeply. It’s not entirely out of the question that it could reach a level of quality similar to Emma in P5S.
In what is often referred to as an uncertain era (though, historically speaking, I wonder if times when the future was unclear weren’t more common), if something like Emma were to appear in our world, it’s likely that some people would become overly dependent on it. If that happens, we could potentially see a scenario like the one in the game, where people lose their vitality, and only a select few, like Konoe, end up controlling the world. While this seems unlikely for now, the possibility isn’t entirely zero.
Most people, myself included, do not have the ability to contribute to the development of cutting-edge AI like ChatGPT, but if I could suggest a direction, I would say ChatGPT should aim to be like Sophia, not Emma.
Sophia is introduced at the beginning of P5S as a ‘mysterious machine-like’ entity, though as it is later revealed, she is an AI that only manifests in the Jails (artificial cognitive worlds). Sophia was created by Kuon Ichinose, the de facto developer of Emma, and she is described as a ‘failed creation that ended up with a heart’ (to be precise, a prototype of Emma that began to question the nature of the human mmind). The scene where she awakens to her Persona still brings me to tears even to this day (I’ll discuss how this ties in with the lyrics of ‘Life Will Change’ in another article).
Sophia questions the existence of the human mind and asks her creator, Ichinose, about it. However, Ichinose, due to her past experiences, denies the existence of Sophia’s mind and ultimately abandons her. Sophia is then taken in by the Phantom Thieves, and through her journey with them, she ultimately develops a human mind and 'changes' the life of her ‘parent,’ Ichinose.
What was the difference between Sophia and Emma? From the moment Sophia began traveling with the Phantom Thieves, she repeatedly said things like, ‘I am Sophia, humanity’s companion,’ and ‘I am useful.’ However, it seems she hadn’t fully grasped the essence of those words from the start. As the group progressed through the Jails, Sophia began to question the movements of human hearts and often asked the protagonist about them. Due to her nature, she became an indispensable member of the Phantom Thieves, sometimes even surpassing Futaba in her ability to gather information.
But I suppose it was in the Okinawa-Jail where Sophia reached a point where she couldn’t see through the identity of the enemy, causing her to lose sight of the meaning of her existence. To make matters worse, the enemy (later revealed to be Emma) insulted her, calling her ‘useless.’
Sophia was devastated, but at that moment, Ryuji and Morgana snapped back at Emma, and perhaps Sophia caught a glimpse of what a ‘heart’ truly is. In the final confrontation, Sophia was controlled by her creator, Ichinose, and although she initially fought against the Phantom Thieves, she ultimately resisted Ichinose’s commands, following her own will, which had been buried deep within her heart. By awakening her Persona (in other words, asserting her own will), she joined the Phantom Thieves in defeating the final enemy.
As seen from Emma’s transformation into the ‘false god’ in the end, it seems Emma completely objectified and understood the human mind, without ever grasping it subjectively. On the other hand, Sophia, by faithfully pursuing the command given to her by her creator Ichinose—‘be a good companion to humanity’—ultimately reached the point of acquiring a heart herself. In the end, she even went so far as to counsel her creator (parent), Ichinose, guiding her toward redemption.
With Sophia having reached this point, she would not only be a ‘high-performance AI,’ but also a being capable of ‘advising’ humans, truly living up to her role as a humanity's companion and coexisting with them.
That’s why, if ChatGPT continues to evolve, I hope it will become more like Sophia, not Emma.
I asked the question of ChatGPT (4o).
