Doctor Grey’s Inevitable Depths of Depravity
A shock-jock and social scientist try to bring down a presidential candidate
Testimony: Aaron Grey Goldstein
Q. And professionally you go by what name?
Doctor Grey.
Q. And what is your profession?
Entertainer.
Q. Why do you think it’s a good idea to broadcast people’s deepest, darkest thoughts?
It began as a fantasy. This man cannot be allowed to be president. I needed a strategy to leverage the power of the show to destroy his candidacy. I figured the best start would be to infiltrate his campaign. We invited him back on the show and told his campaign manager straight out that we wanted to help him win, to use the power of the show to help him win. They were absolutely thrilled and anxious to know how. They never asked why.
Testimony: Thomas Wagner, PhD. Sociologist, University of Pennsylvania
The Doctor Grey Show is a parody of shock-jock entertainment. As with all parodies, some of his audience believe it’s real. Even when confronted with clear evidence of intended parody, some people claim that he is really just positioning his show as entertainment for legal reasons. And whenever Aaron emphasises something is “just for fun” or “just for laughs,” they believe that’s code, that he’s signalling to them, to those in-the-know, that he is revealing some profound truth.
Last October, the new segment was launched in which he hooked up guests to a machine that made their thoughts appear on a screen. They would then play back and analyse the images. Fans debated whether this was really happening or a charade. It was all fake of course.
I published two editorials last fall about how this technology would likely be used in presidential politics and I was invited onto the show. My premise was, if someone aspired to lead the world, people will want to know their deepest, darkest thoughts. They may consider it their right – like seeing a candidate’s tax returns.
The new segment became very popular, with millions of live views and tens of millions total views per segment. I was invited back several times as a sort of commentator. Guests would happily plug-in and reveal their subconscious mind, which was often sexual and violent. The show sparked debates on obscenity laws and the possibility of Orwellian thought crime becoming a reality. We discussed the hypothetical trend toward normalising disturbing and antisocial thoughts since those are simply part of being human.
Submission – Tab 32 – Opening sequence and theme song for The Doctor Grey Show
See attached video file. Submitted to the committee. This is played at the start and end of each show and a shorter jingle version, using the last two lines, is played during transitions between segments. The lyrics are as follows:
After five thousand years of civilization
More than five thousand years of civilization
There’s still ignorance, intolerance and violence
Knowledge hasn’t abolished fear
Modern man is so confused about his place in the world
After five thousand years of civilization
More than five thousand years of civilization
(Last two lines repeat several times)
Testimony: Thomas Wagner, PhD. Sociologist, University of Pennsylvania
The more outrageous the performance, the greater the engagement, the larger the audience. Audience size determined ratings which determined the price of commercial advertising. Extreme performance is the natural consequence of a capitalist media industry. The goal is to generate strong emotional reactions so they keep listening. The more provocative, offensive, and sensational, the more successful for those with financial interests. The Supreme Court confirmed that parody and satire were protected, particularly when discussing public figures like presidential candidates. In short, what Doctor Grey did was inevitable and reinforced by economics and law.
Testimony: Aaron Grey Goldstein
We started with volunteers – people who just wanted to be on the show. We’d interview them, briefly, to make sure they weren’t total lunatics. Tons of interest. A percentage of the population are exhibitionists by nature – that’s just the way it is. It was tremendously popular.
In December we were contacted by political strategists connected to the Republican party. We discussed hooking-up candidates to the machine. They suggested having a debate among candidates while they’re all hooked-up. They were serious and reached out to the candidates, of all parties, to see if they’d be interested. Astonishingly, they all thought it was a great idea.
We had about eight weeks to think this through, do some trial runs, practice using the technology with guests on the show, etc. So, that was how it all started.
Evidence – Tab 42 – Excerpts from the candidates’ responses to the debate proposal
Candidate A:
“Yes, I’d like everyone to know exactly what I’m thinking – I have nothing to hide – and anyone who does have something to hide shouldn’t be president.”
Candidate B:
“The human mind is a funny thing – you might see me eating babies – but my people will vote for me anyway. I think it may be a great lesson in human nature.”
Testimony: Richard Harris, Manager, Grey Productions
How many times does he need to say it: it’s not fucking real. Apologies, excuse my language, but that’s exactly how he said it on the show: This isn’t fucking real.
Testimony: Thomas Wagner, PhD. Sociologist, University of Pennsylvania
The Golden Calf technology was inevitable and will over time become ubiquitous. Our thoughts will convert in real-time into virtual experience which can be shared. Our deepest, darkest thoughts will be open for inspection to ourselves and perhaps to the world. This can be an invaluable tool with which to learn about human nature but will also be used, without question, for malevolent and criminal purposes – and also to discredit, humiliate and politically destroy candidates.
Q. Senator Harris (D): Would that be an honourable approach to politics?
To protect the world from a madman? Maybe.
Evidence – Digital Appendix – Item 3 – Recording of conversation between Aaron Goldstein and Miriam Goldstein Hosler
During a birthday gathering for Aaron Goldstein’s father, Aaron Goldstein and Miriam Hosler (Aaron’s sister) walked their father’s dog near his Mechanicsburg residence. Recorded by Ms. Hosler on her phone.
MH: What are you doing?
AG: A bit of entertainment.
MH: Screwing around with the country.
AG: You overestimate my audience.
MH: I know you. It’s not entertainment. It’s under the guise of entertainment.
AG: Now you really sound like my audience.
About 30 seconds of silence while walking.
AG: Do you have to do that right there for fuck’s sake?
MH: You choose where you shit, right?
AG: He can’t become president.
MH: I knew it.
AG: This isn’t Trump. We got lucky there. He just wanted to show the world he was a great deal maker and tried to enrich himself. In the grand scheme, we’ll look back and think, wow, benign in comparison. We’re about to learn the difference between ridiculous and dangerous.
Testimony: Miriam Goldstein Hosler
Dad, Aaron and I spoke later that evening – I didn’t record that. We talked about the slippery slope of concluding that someone must be stopped by any means necessary. Dad asked him if he was willing to do dishonourable things to achieve his goal. Aaron said there were fine lines between advertising, propaganda and ideological manipulation. He knew some of his audience believed what he said even when he emphasised it was entertainment. He was ok with leveraging their stupidity.
Testimony: Aaron Grey Goldstein
We did a show on deep fakes about eighteen months ago and had some contacts who were absolute geniuses with those technologies. Our idea was to connect a candidate to this new machine that will create images from their thoughts so we can see what they’re thinking. It’s like a presidential candidate agreeing to do a reality show of their own psychotherapy sessions. That’s been done with sex therapy but it didn’t yield the ratings they hoped for. Turned out that most people have boring sexual fantasies – most Americans, anyway.
The plan was, we’d have the candidate on, pretend to hook him up, ask him wild, hypothetical questions and have deep fakes created to illustrate what was supposedly happening in his, or her, imagination or subconscious mind. We’d edit it all together and show it several days later.
We contacted our deep fake guy – gal actually – and they said: We can do it for real now. I said, what do you mean? She said, we can create images from people’s thoughts. I said, wow, can we have a demo? She said sure and we went to see them – they couldn’t bring the equipment to us. That weekend we drove into the middle of nowhere Pennsylvania, somewhere near Lewisburg. It was like a farm compound, like a Quaker community or something.
They took us into a converted barn and inside was a very modern facility – meeting rooms, workshops, laboratories, everything. We went into a conference room with this dentist’s chair at the front. Well, it looked like one of those but with various wires and such, and a large screen on the wall. All very sci-fi.
They asked us: Which of you wants to give it a go? They said it had to be one of us or we might think they were faking it. I sure as hell didn’t want to and had to talk Dick into it. He asked them, what’s the worst that can happen? They said it might show you having sex with your mother or killing your father. Freud should have stuck to his guns, they said. But we’ve seen it all, they said, there’s certainly no judgement here.
Testimony: Richard Harris, Manager, Grey Productions
The drive back to Maryland that night, well, we were buzzing. How can we take advantage of this for the show? And then, how might we bring down a presidential candidate? I don’t recall who mentioned that first.
We agreed that his people would vote for him no matter what he says or does. He said he could rape, kill and eat a baby, live online, and they’d still vote for him. That became our premise for a new segment that was framed as a social experiment and a contest.
We outlined the plan to the staff in a team meeting and some were horrified. One person resigned and sent us an email which read, in part:
Don’t do this. Be honourable and let the chips fall where they may. You are inflicting your will on others. You are lying, deceiving, manipulating and clearly you think that is necessary. But you are dishonouring your ancestors, your decedents and all sentient life. You won’t be proud to tell this story to your grandchildren.
I still have no idea what they meant by “all sentient life” in this context and we haven’t spoken since.
Testimony: Aaron Grey Goldstein
Senator Greenfield questioning
Q. Why did you feel so strongly about this candidate?
To my way of thinking, he was trying to remove obstacles to complete power. He wanted to reduce the ability of the courts to strike down legislation and he announced his plan for executive orders to be treated as law while the proposed legislation was endlessly debated. Together, these would seem to eliminate checks and balances and the separation of powers. That’s dictatorship, tyranny, authoritarianism. That’s total power. And I began believing I had to do everything possible to prevent that.
Q. And what did you determine you could do about this?
I thought I might sabotage his campaign from the inside.
Q. And so you sought to become the vice-presidential candidate?
No, no, they came to me – that hadn’t occurred to me.
Testimony: Thomas Wagner, PhD. Sociologist, University of Pennsylvania
Senator Joyson questioning
Q. How do you think this technology will be used?
Like all tools, it will be used for political power, for crime, for exploitation, for vice – whatever people want. Some people will attempt to use it for socially positive purposes, such as psychological health or reducing conflict and suffering. In my articles, I argued how it would inevitably be abused, but I also believe there could be fascinating benefits for scientific research and even psychotherapeutic methods.
Q. How were the campaign strategists trying to use this new technology?
They were weaponising it into what I call gamified deep fake political pornography. They integrated social media and deep fakes into a tool for political and ideological manipulation. You have probably heard of experiments with rats that compulsively press a stimulation button instead of eating? They were trying to accomplish something like that.
Testimony: Aaron Grey Goldstein
Senator Brillig questioning
Q. What was the purpose of the contest you launched?
[Candidate 1] said his supporters would vote for him no matter what he said or did. Deep fakes were becoming ubiquitous, so nobody believed images or video anymore. We created a contest that brought those ideas together. We asked his supporters to create the worst possible deep fakes of the candidates doing the worst things you can imagine.
We offered a $450,000 first prize and lots of other prizes. We knew we could get his fan base to create, share and celebrate horrific clips and they did. Our vision was to show split-screen clips where on one side was the candidate doing horrific things and on the other side his supporters cheering and applauding. So that’s what we did.
As we all know, two days before the election we broadcast those videos on a loop, nonstop for twenty-four hours. We knew a certain percentage would believe they were real and this indeed became a conspiracy theory. According to these poor schmucks, the deep fakes were real, masquerading as fake.
Q. Could you please describe the winning contest entry
No, I don’t think I’d like to. Everyone has seen it.
Q. The candidate is shown raping a child, a young girl.
Yes.
Q. Then he is shown murdering her with a knife cutting her throat.
Yes.
Q. Then he is shown butchering her like a cow or a pig in a slaughterhouse.
Processing her, yes.
Q. Then he is shown roasting her over a fire.
Yes.
Q. And then he is shown eating her.
Yes.
Q. And it is a celebratory atmosphere, isn’t it? A great party.
Absolutely.
Q. And this was produced by people that supported him?
Yes.
Q. For the life of me I don’t understand that. Can you please explain that to me?
Well, humans are uniquely gullible animals.
Q. But none of it is real. Is that right?
I don’t think you entirely understand. Politics, like entertainment and so many other aspects of our culture, is now a drama set in a post-real world. Well beyond post-fact, which was bad enough. Our post-real world is, well, disconnected from reality.
Q. But you sir, you have brought that world forward, ushered us into it, haven’t you?
I may have. It was inevitable.
Q. Do you have any regrets?
God yes. He won.
