“Uncommon Courses” is an irregular series from The Conversation US that presents unconventional teaching approaches.

Course title:

“Feedback loops: How to give and receive high-quality feedback”

How did the concept for this course come about?

Because my students are pursuing careers in a wide range of fields—business, philanthropy, sports, medicine, finance, human rights, education—I wanted to offer them skills that serve a general purpose. The ability to offer and receive high-quality feedback will help them and the people they work with wherever they find yourself.

What does the course examine?

We learn methods to seek and share feedback. But we also learn methods to interpret feedback, especially once we receive it from multiple sources.

We are also experimenting with a wide selection of feedback frameworks. Some frameworks come from external sources, resembling “Radical openness“ by business management coach Kim Scott and “Thanks for the feedback” by Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen of Harvard University Negotiation project. The remaining frameworks are the product of collaborations with students, lawyers, doctors, consultants, and entrepreneurs. They include strategies for methods to give feedback to your boss, methods to receive feedback from a colleague, and methods to process feedback even when it shouldn’t be clear or consistent.

Explain the concept of ​​a feedback framework

Stone and Heen write about three:

• recognition: to applaud someone for his or her efforts and achievements
• Coaching: show someone a greater strategy to do something
• Evaluation: tell someone where they stand

The optimal mix varies by person and situation, so we'll discuss different scenarios where one part or the opposite needs to be emphasized. A beginner or someone who’s discouraged might have more recognition, but a more advanced person may crave “coaching” and “evaluation.” That is, knowledgeable baseball player might want recommendations on improving his swing.

What are some key takeaways from the course?

Just because you might be willing to offer someone feedback doesn't mean they’re willing to receive it. The comedian Craig Ferguson said it took him two failed marriages to learn this lesson. He now asks himself three questions before revealing his thoughts:

1. Does this must be said?
2. Do I actually have to say that?
3. Do I actually have to say this now?

Another key idea comes from cognitive psychologist LeeAnn Renninger who explained in a TED Talk the importance of timing. Instead of bombarding individuals with criticism, she suggests giving them some control over the presentation. Start with something like, “Do you have time to talk about how the last presentation went?”

Consent and autonomy will be crucial components of feedback.

What materials does the course contain?

Last 12 months I summarized crucial concepts and exercises of the course in a book entitled:Feedback loops: How to offer and receive high-quality feedback” that individuals can read or download free of charge. I also use videos, quizzes and tasks from a Online course to which the book is a companion text.

What does the course prepare students for?

Many students say the course has helped them turn into higher editors. Others say it has helped them turn into higher listeners and leaders. But perhaps the best profit is that they develop a set of tools and conceptual vocabulary to assist them get well. They learn methods to improve themselves—and others.

In May 2024, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman sparked a firestorm by referring to the film “Her” to spotlight the novelty of the most recent iteration of ChatGPT.

Within a number of days, actress Scarlett Johansson, who played the voice of Samantha, the protagonist’s AI girlfriend, within the film “Her”, accused the corporate of abusing her voice after turning down their offer to be the voice of ChatGPT's latest virtual assistant. Johansson sued OpenAI And was invited to testify before Congress.

This dispute highlights a broader exchange between Hollywood and Silicon Valley referred to as “Science fiction feedback loop.” The topic of my PhD thesis, the science fiction feedback loop, examines how science fiction and technological innovation influence one another. This dynamic is bidirectional and might sometimes extend over many a long time, leading to an infinite loop.

Fiction awakens dreams of moon trips

One of the best-known examples of this cycle is the trip to the moon.

Jules Verne’s 1865 novel “From the Earth to the Moon“ and the fiction of HG Wells inspired one of the first films to visualize such a journey, “A trip to the moon.”

The novels of Verne and Wells also influenced future rocket scientists corresponding to Robert Goddard, Hermann Oberth and Oberth’s better-known protégé, Wernher von BraunThe innovations of those men – including the V-2 rocket von Braun during World War II – inspired works of science fiction, corresponding to the 1950 film “Target Moon”, which included a rocket that looked exactly just like the V-2.

Films like “Destination Moon” would then proceed strengthen public support for the generous government spending on the space program.

Creative symbiosis

The science fiction feedback loop generally follows the identical cycle.

First, the technological climate of a selected era will shape the science fiction of that point. For example, the Personal Computing Revolution of the Seventies and Eighties directly inspired the works of cyberpunk authors Neal Stephenson And William Gibson.

Then the science fiction that results will encourage technological innovations in the true world. In his 1992 classic “Snow crashStephenson coined the term “metaverse” to explain a three-dimensional, video game-like world that may be accessed through virtual reality glasses.

Entrepreneurs and innovators from Silicon Valley have tried to create a version of this metaverse since then. The virtual world of video games Second Lifewhich launched in 2003, tried this: Players lived in virtual houses, went to virtual dance clubs and virtual concert events with virtual friends, and even got virtual dollars for showing up for virtual jobs.

This technology was the breeding ground for other fictional works. During my research, I discovered that science fiction creator Ernest Cline had spent plenty of time in Second Life and had used it to create the metaverse of his best-selling novel “Ready Player One.”

The cycle continued: Employees of Oculus VR – now referred to as Meta Reality Labs – received copies of Ready Player One after they were developing the corporate’s virtual reality headsets. When Facebook modified its name to Meta in 2021It did so within the hope of being on the forefront of constructing the metaverse, although the corporate’s grand ambitions have softened somewhat.

Another sci-fi franchise that has its fingerprints throughout this loop is “Star Trek,” which first aired in 1966, in the course of the space race.

Steve Perlman, the inventor of Apple’s QuickTime media format and player, said he was inspired through an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation wherein Lt. Commander Data, an android, searches through several audio and video streams. And Rob Haitani, the developer of the Palm Pilot operating system, said that the bridge on the Enterprise influenced its interface.

During my research I also came upon that the holodeck of the show – a room that might simulate any environment – ​​influenced each the name and the event of Microsoft’s Augmented Reality Glasses HoloLens.

From ALICE to “Her”

Which brings us back to OpenAI and “Her”.

In the film, the protagonist Theodore, played by Joaquin Phoenix, gets an AI assistant named “Samantha,” who’s voiced by Johansson. He begins to develop feelings for Samantha – a lot in order that he starts to think about her his girlfriend.

ChatGPT-4o, the most recent version of generative AI software, appears to give you the chance to create an analogous relationship between user and machine. ChatGPT-4o cannot only check with you and “get” you, but it could actually achieve this compassionately, like a romantic partner would.

There is little doubt that the depiction of AI in “Her” influenced the developers of OpenAI. In addition to Altman’s tweet, the corporate Promotional videos for ChatGPT-4o show a chatbot that talks to a candidate before his interview, supporting and inspiring him – like an AI friend would do. The AI ​​within the clips, Ars Technica observedwas “disarmingly lifelike” and able to “laugh at your jokes and your silly hat.”

But you is perhaps surprised to know that an earlier generation of chatbots inspired Spike Jonze, the director and screenwriter of Her, to put in writing the screenplay. Almost a decade before the film's release Jonze had interacted with a version of the ALICE chatbotone in all the primary chatbots with a definite personality – within the case of ALICE, that of a young woman.

The chatbot ALICE won the Loebner Prize thrice, which was awarded annually until 2019 to the AI ​​software that got here closest to passing the Turing testhas long been considered the brink for determining whether artificial intelligence is not any longer distinguishable from human intelligence.

The science fiction feedback loop has no expiration date. The ability of AI to construct relationships with humans is a subject that continues to be explored in fiction and real life.

A couple of years after “Her”Blade Runner 2049” showed a virtual friend, Joiwith a holographic body. Long before the recent drama with OpenAI, firms had begun Development and placement of virtual girlfriendsa process that may undoubtedly proceed. As science fiction creator and social media critic Cory Doctorow wrote in 2017“Science fiction can do something better than predict the future: it can do it.”