If good people make AI, can AI make good people?

The developers of ChatGPT built extremely useful software, putting a “Wikipedia on steroids” at our fingertips by leveraging collective intelligence in ways never seen before. In this sense, as defined by Plato and Aristotle over two thousand years ago, they are “good people”. This means they are morally good or virtuous by giving away a highly beneficial software product for free that makes many chores of the daily life of knowledge workers much easier. These AI developers are thus acting according to the golden rule (of reciprocity), treating others as they would like to be treated.

The problem is that not everybody who writes AI software is a “good” person. If only one percent of AI developers acts entirely egoistic, or even malicious, there is the risk that these “bad apples” will abuse the power of AI for their own sinister purposes, without any consideration for the wellbeing of the rest of us. But what if we could turn the power of AI on these “bad apples”, to identify them before they get a chance to put their hands on the levers of AI and pervert AI’s power in criminal ways. And even better, what if we could help these “bad apples” to become self-aware of their bad habits and convert them into “good apples”?

This is where our Social Compass comes in. It uses AI to show you if you are a good or a bad person, based on honest signals extracted from your words, social network structure, and network dynamics. (There is also a version that measure honest signals from your facial expressions, your speech energy, and your body posture with the same goal). Social Compass is the latest of our social network analysis, natural language processing, and forecasting and prediction tools that are based on over twenty years of research on COINs (Collaborative Innovation Networks) at the MIT Center for Collective Intelligence. Social Compass analyses your WhatsApp, Email and LinkedIn and computes your personality based on the FFI (Five Factor Inventory), your moral values based on the Haidt moral value theory and Schwartz value system, and risk taking behavior based on the DOSPERT survey.

These moral values are combined into virtual personas, the bees – creative team players, the ants – hard working but highly competitive, and leeches – selfish and extrinsically motivated mostly by money.

To give you actionable advice how to be(come) a happy bee, Social Compass measures your PERMA. PERMA has been defined by the founding father of positive psychology, Martin Seligman, and consists of five components: Positive attitude, Engagement (how much are you in flow), Relationships (how good are they), Meaning (how much meaning does your daily life give you), and Achievement (how much recognition are you getting). Each of us can show different faces and personalities to different groups of people. In WhatsApp we manage our friends and family, these are what sociologists call our “strong ties”. Email is still the workhorse in large companies; thus the Social Compass analysis of the mailbox will show my professional business personality within my company. LinkedIn shows my outside professional face, it is my showcase of the personality I want the outside world to see. The pictures below show my WhatsApp, Email and LinkedIn personalites. As you can see, they are quite different! The first picture shows the Social Compass analysis of my WhatsApp. This is the personality that my family and my friends get to see. I am mostly a spiritual bee, with a smaller share of spiritual ant behavior. My leech personality is minimal.

The picture below shows the Wellbeing and PERMA analysis of my WhatsApp personality, telling me what I can do to improve my mental wellbeing. While my mindstate is ok, Social Compass still recommends me some relaxing time. Regarding PERMA, it seems right now my relationships are in good shape, and I am getting a lot of recognition (high achievement). However, I am still searching for more and new meaning in life, and my entanglement with my closest friends could also use some strengthening.

The next picture shows the Social Compass analysis of my Email. While I am still a strong spiritual bee, my leech personality is larger in my business life. This is not surprising, because as an entrepreneur running a small company, I have to negotiate software licensing and consulting fees, and show my more selfish side to assure the continued success of my business. As the mindstate chart shows, this also leads to some stress.

The Email PERMA analysis tells me that positivity and relationships are in good order, but again, just like in my private personality, I still need to find more meaning in what I do and get more entangled with my colleagues.

The final picture shows my LinkedIn tribes, reflecting the personality I show to the outside business world. It confirms a consistent personality as a spiritual bee, with a very small share of competitive “antness”, and a smaller share of spiritual leechiness.

Knowing my own personalities, in all three spheres, private, company-internal, and outside business world, will help me to become a better person, to manage my leechiness consciously, and to use PERMA to improve personal happiness and wellbeing, by focusing on my identified weaknesses.

If you would like to try out Social Compass for yourself, you are welcome to sign up for a free trial account at sc.galaxyadvisors.com and discover your own bee, ant, and leechiness, and your PERMA.