The Fake Expert



The Fake Expert | |

|Stimuli |

|Play the Youtube video, “BBC Interviews the Wrong Guy” . |

|Beforehand, provide the contextual background information as to how this incident arose (info available at |

|). |

|A major copyright news story emerged involving Apple. The BBC, being a news organisation, decided that they would invite Guy |

|Kewney, an online music expert, to get interviewed. The plan was for a normal TV interview to take place: Guy Kewney to come into |

|their studios, appear live on air and explain his opinion of this latest story. |

|At this exact same time, there was another man named Guy Goma who had applied for a job at the BBC as a data support staffer. On |

|this same day, he walked into the BBC building to attend an interview for that job. |

|But there was a mix-up. The BBC receptionist thought that job-applicant Guy Goma was actually the music expert Guy Kewney. So |

|instead of sending Guy Goma over to Human Resources to do the job interview, they directed him into the television studios and sat |

|him down on a chair, on the stage, in front of a camera. A BBC journalist then proceeded, live on air, to interview him about the |

|music copyright story. |

|Throughout this whole debacle, Guy Goma just went along with it because he thought that it was just part of the job interview |

|process. But then, when the interview begins, he suddenly realises that there’s been a huge mistake and that he’s in the wrong |

|place. Instead of being asked questions about data and computers, the questions are all about music laws (something which he knows |

|nothing about). |

|But instead of running away or speaking up that there’s been this mistake, he tries to go along with the interview, answering the |

|questions as best he can by making up the answers off the top of his head. |

|When telling this story, emphasis and focus should be placed on the behaviour of Guy Goma: he found himself trapped in a situation |

|where he was expected to speak as if he were an expert on a topic which he actually had no knowledge about. He had no choice but to|

|instantaneously invent answers to these questions, in the hope of providing an answer that was factually meaningless but sounded |

|acceptable and plausible. |

|His goal, in other words, was to bluff his way through the interview – to be a layperson passing off as an expert. |

| |

|Set up |

|There are six chairs placed upon the stage, one for the game-show host (the teacher) and the rest for the contestants. For every |

|round, there are five contestants, one for each chair. It’s important that the room is organised in such a way that there’s a clear|

|and obvious spatial separation between the contestants sitting on the chairs and the rest of the class (the audience) sitting on |

|the floor. |

|The round begins when the teacher verbally presents the “subject knowledge” to the contestants. There is then 60 seconds of |

|thinking time, in which every contestant is allowed to think to themselves about an appropriate answer they should give, and |

|they’re not to be interfered with by anyone throughout that time period. |

|When the thinking time is up, the teacher will then invite the contestants to each provide their respective answers. |

|There will be a rotation process in place in regards to which contestant is asked first for their answer. On the first round, the |

|contestant closest to the teacher will be asked first, then moving to second and third contestant away progressively to the fifth. |

|On the second round, the contestant second-closest to the teacher will be asked first, then moving to third and fourth |

|progressively away to the fifth, before then going back to the start and asking the contestant closest. This rotation system keeps |

|going in the same way. Eventually there will be a round in which the fifth-closest student goes first, going back to the first, all|

|the way to the fourth. After that, the whole system goes back to the start with the closest student again asked first. |

|It is up to the teacher’s own discretion how the competition of this game should be structured: whether each student is an |

|individual contestant, or if the class is broken up into five teams; how frequently the rotation of contestants on stage should be;|

|etc. |

| |

|How to play |

|By having access to a computer with the internet, the game-show host will use a random word generator program, such as: |

| |

|# |

|# |

|# |

| |

|They will click the randomise button and review the words that are produced on the screen. The task for them is to construe and |

|organise the words in such a way as to produce what could be conceivably a subject of knowledge, but in the real world is actually |

|not. This process could require use of only one of the randomised words, or two, three, or maybe even more – the game-show host |

|simply uses their best judgement on what to do and how to do it. |

|For example, if the randomised words were “fountain,” “goanna,” “laughter,” “glass” and “dinner,” there are many different ways to |

|present those words as a subject of knowledge. For example, “people trying to eat glass for dinner,” “eating goannas for dinner,” |

|“the laughing goanna,” “the goanna-shaped fountain made of glass,” etc, etc. None of these are real subjects of knowledge, but they|

|could conceivably be so, because they appear like a specialised area of information privy to only those who have studied deeply |

|into it. |

|Once the game-show host has figured out what the (fake) subject of knowledge is going to be, they will then verbally present it to |

|the contestants, and the 60 seconds of thinking time will then begin. |

|When a contestant is invited to present their answer, they must speak for 60 seconds on that subject of knowledge – |

|extemporaneously and without pauses – and to present their statements as if they were actually experts on this subject. Just like |

|Guy Goma, they must talk about this subject in such a clear and confident way that it gives off the impression that they are |

|actually very learned about this matter, that they have studied this subject deeply and that they can be trusted to speak the |

|truth. |

|The difference between the BBC example and this game is with the acceptability and plausibility of facts. With Guy Goma, he had to |

|be very careful with what he said, making sure that he never said anything that was incorrect by which he could be found out – he |

|survived on being vague and uninteresting, on limiting the number of facts he said. But with this game, students are encouraged to |

|be clear, specific and peculiar with the statements they make. There is no test of factualness that they must adhere to. Instead, |

|they are allowed to lie about anything and everything they say. In fact, lying must be encouraged in this game: students should |

|feel free and safe to let go of their inhibitions and openly say things that are plainly not true. |

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