Users pay a monthly service fee to have access to the Hire an Avatar system. This system allows them to command a living person around while a camera they are wearing observes in first person perspective.

In many ways this service is like a mmorpg except real humans are being commanded around the real world, however it is viewed and controlled primarily online. Users have access to the Hire an Avatar system at scheduled times so each of the system's much belabored employees can actually make money and not become a sort of slave.

Although not slaves per se, the characters users get to control will passively do just about anything. They respond to commands to move forward, move backwards, move left, and move right just like a computer avatar. In this way they are just like a computer avatar, as they cannot be communicated to directly. They cannot be given complex instructions like "clean the bathroom", only keyboard commands and predefined action hot-keys like "drop kick" or "forward dive" which have to be carried out unhesitatingly.
-- rcarty, Mar 18 2011

Wikipeda: Gamer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamer_(film)
[rcarty, Mar 18 2011]

IMDB: Surrogates http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0986263/
[rcarty, Mar 18 2011]

<directs avatar to end of Brighton Pier> <forward dive> <youtube/upload video> <sniggers childishly>
-- pocmloc, Mar 18 2011


I wonder if the pornography industry would find any use for this service…
-- hippo, Mar 18 2011


I fail to see how this differs from the premise of the film "Gamer".

Or if you change "human avatar" to "robot avatar" you get the film "Surrogate".
-- iaoth, Mar 18 2011


I haven't seen the film 'Gamer'. Is it widely known to exist?
-- rcarty, Mar 18 2011


"Surrogates" was sort of widely promoted; I'd never heard about "Gamer" before, and it bombed with critics. But both of those have direct control (nanites in Gamer, outright robotic control in "Surrogates"), while this idea's control mechanism just seems to be a command relationship.

The early plot's description of "Gamers" echoes some of the annotations here, though:
"The first major application of this technology [...] generally boils down to the players engaging in all manner of debauchery, such as deliberately injuring their "characters", engaging in sex with random people, and eating disgusting things because they don't actually have to taste it. As a result, those who work as "characters" in Society are very well paid for their participation."
-- jutta, Mar 18 2011



random, halfbakery