The Type of Charisma That Saves a Holiday Party
Last March, the Stanford computer-science student Bryan Chiang posted a video on Twitter (now called X) of a project he called “rizzGPT,” which intended to provide “real-time charisma.” Essentially, it combines an augmented-reality device and ChatGPT to listen to your conversations and display what you should say next. The idea was to outsource charisma—that alluring, mysterious, stubbornly human trait that draws people to you. The prototype’s inability to say anything charming in the video demonstration emphasized just how elusive true magnetism can be.
Still, the project was only the latest in a lineage of attempts, a guide to being liked and listened to; a professional-development program based on his teachings persists to this day. Now the YouTube channel Charisma On Command offers tutorials on how to reverse-engineer social power by, say, studying the way the actor Bryan Cranston transforms in the show from a meek chemistry teacher into a commanding drug kingpin by straightening his shoulders, speaking slowly, and maintaining eye contact. There’s a whole charisma-commercialization complex full of coaches, authors, and now computer scientists, ready to teach you social hacks to get what you want.
