Rant on the Humanity of Robots.

            The article “Artificial Minds” was quite a confusing but very interesting read. Throughout the entire article you are being bombarded with questions that, in my opinion, are rather unanswerable and if answered are very biased responses. By using movie examples such as The Matrix, A.I., and Star Trek: The Next Generation, the author is trying to convince the audience that this concept of technology being human-like and possessing emotions is not unheard of and can be believable due to the explosion of media based on it. The author presents an upfront contradiction of “ (1) Computers can’t do what we can, and sine having a mind means doing what we can do, artificial minds are impossible. (2) Computers can do what we can, and since they don’t have minds, we don’t either, or at least much of what we think about the mind is false.” When reading this I thought about all the myths we learn from our community as we are growing up. False and unprovable statements such as Freudian theories of the subconscious to the idea that we only use 10% of our brain consume our lives and lead us to believe, or at least consider, contradictions like the one this author uses. To program a computer to feel something and to have the computer actually physically feel something are two very different things. We, as humans, do not need to be taught or programmed to feel or express our emotions; we come out of the womb screaming! This is the difference between artificial life and human life. You can make a robot physically look like a human, behave like a human, and think like a human but it will never be naturally and subconsciously a human.

"Artificial Intelligence" The Film

Artificial Intelligence opens with an “end of the world” scenario followed by the introduction of robots to society. The narrator explains that robots did not consume any products (other than those they are built with) and they did not need to be taken care of like human beings; therefore, they were vital to world recovery. The robot you see in the beginning of the film is not differentiable from the rest of the humans in the room. Professor Hobby, played by William Hurt, explains that the difference between robots and humans is that the former do not have any emotions; they are intelligent, expressive, and have memory responses but they do not possess feelings or have any emotional reactions. An example of this occurs when Professor Hobby pokes the robot’s hand with a needle and she squeals but when asked how she felt about what he just did, she said, “I do not understand.” When asked, “What did I do to your feelings?” she said, “You did it to my hand.” Professor Hobby then asks the robot “What is love?” She responds with actions such as, “Love is first widening my eyes a little bit, then quickening my breathing, then warming my skin…” Professor Hobby points out that the robot knows how to physically depict love but she has no real emotion attached to these actions. Robots cannot genuinely express love; therefore, he proposes to the group that they create a robot child who can feel and express love. The group seems uneasy about the proposal and one of the members brings up the point that we as humans are uneasy with the idea of loving a robot. She asks, “What responsibility does that person hold to that mecca in return?” in regards to a robot child loving a human parent. As a society, we are genuinely fearful of technology taking over our lives; therefore, we push away the idea of connecting with a “fake being” and strive for real human connections. We have labeled technological entities as emotionless so if a robot did possess feelings, we would be unaccustomed to the idea and would reject the robot from our lives.

"At least we're doing something" vs. "Are you really doing anything?"

            When reading articles about how technology has affected society, we tend to hear a lot more negative than positive. Falling into this category is the article “Can You Hear Me Now?” by Sherry Turkle; falling outside of this bias is Clay Shirky’s article, “Gin, Television, and Social Surplus.” Clay Shirky argues that spending our free time on the Internet is not a negative thing arguing that most people are learning from these sites and gaining some sort of knowledge instead of just being a couch potato. Sherry Turkle, on the other hand, says that society is becoming non-interactive because we only interact with virtual reality. She argues that by creating a virtual reality, the Internet and its many sites make the users believe they are having close relationships with people when in reality (actual reality) these relationships are non-existent. Clay Shirky responds to statements like these by saying, “At least they’re doing something.” Shirkey sees the positive in this situation, that cognitive surplus (that we as consumers not only want to consume and keep but we also want to share, to do well, to participate, to help others) exists and that the Internet is going to help people share with and help others. Yet, Turkle would say we rely so heavily on our gadgets and being in front of screens that we don’t feel the need to share or be with other so is society really doing anything?

I think both writers have convincing arguments that are supported well but I agree more with Clay Shirky. I am a bit biased towards him because I have read and heard many of his speeches before and I enjoy hearing his positive take on this topic. I also think his theory on “cognitive surplus” is very persuasive and very believable therefore audiences would side with his argument more than Sherry Turkle’s.

"Can You Hear Me Now?"

In her article “Can You Hear Me Now?,” Sherry Turkle debates that technology has consumed its consumers lives. By creating a virtual reality, the Internet and its many sites make the users believe they are having close relationships with people when in reality (actual reality) these relationships are non-existent. Turkle argues that our popularity and success is no longer measured by our actions but our actions through technology such as “calls made, emails answered, and messages responded to.” She believes that we no longer have any free time or time to ourselves because we are “always on” and always engaged in some sort of networking whether it be on our phones, computers, or laptops. She also argues that our emotions are being put on stand by because we no longer experience the same things past generations have felt. She gives the example of a 12-14 year old kid finally being on their own to walk to school, but now has mommy on speed dial and, therefore, will no longer experience the feeling of being scared. I think a better example would be the feelings of anxiety and anxiousness people would feel when they couldn’t wait to go to school because the wanted to tell their best friend something; we no longer have this connection with our friends. We no longer act out our stories, we simply text what happened and leave out the emotion of the story.

"Gin, Television, and Social Surplus"

In his article/speech “Gin, Television, and Social Surplus,” Clay Shirkey talks about how American society has grown parallel to the growth in technology. From the Industrial Revolution up to now, society has adapted to technological advancements and has found new uses for these gadgets. With the invention of the television and the transformation to a five-day workweek, people now had ways to spend their free time; however, most of this free time was spent on the couch watching TV. “We did that for decades,” says Shirkey, “We watched I Love Lucy. We watched Gilligan’s Island. We watched Malcolm in the Middle.” He argues that now, instead of spending most of our time watching TV-shows, we use up most of our spare time on the Internet, on social media/networking sites. He also says that this isn’t a negative thing; most people are learning from these sites and gaining some sort of knowledge instead of just being a couch potato. He supports the World of Warcraft guilds by saying, “At least they’re doing something” in response to the TV producer who he claims was thinking, “Losers. Grown men sitting in their basement pretending to be elves.” Shirkey sees the positive in this situation, that cognitive surplus (that we as consumers not only want to consume and keep but we also want to share, to do well, to participate, to help others) exists and that the Internet is going to help people share with and help others.

"The Veldt." Frightening Future Family Facilities.

The short story “The Veldt” is about a family from the future who live in a grand self-operating facility. This home cleans itself, cooks for its residents, cleans its residents (e.g. brushes their teeth, combs their hair, washes their bodies, etc.), entertains its residents, etc. It literally is self-operating; thus, all of machines and rooms are always active. The children’s nursery is the jewel of the home. This room creates an alternate reality that is controlled by the children’s minds. By merely imagining a real place or fantasyland, the children are “transported” to the location; the room’s enormity, glass walls and height add to the realism of being in these sites. In the beginning you sense angst as the mother, Lydia, asks her husband, George, to go up to the nursery and check what is occurring. When George gets up to the nursery, the setting is the Veldt: the grasslands of South Africa where lions are feasting on their prey and the people in the room feel as though they will be the lions next meal. Although George tries to assure Lydia that there is nothing to fear, we understand that something is haywire because the children are spending most of their time in this violent frenzy. The nursery is symbolic of all technology and this terror of the nursery is meant to relate to society’s fear of technology taking over.

Realizing that their children are spending too much time in the violent chaos of “Africa,” the parents decide to turn off the nursery for a while in order to relax the children’s minds. When the children, Peter and Wendy (which, I think, is a reference to “Peter Pan”), are notified of their parents decision they throw tantrums; however, instead of their tantrums changing their parents minds in their favor, George and Lydia decide to turn off the entire house and gain back control of their lives. This is a commentary on how all children of the current era are spoiled by their parents and by the technological luxuries they posses. Especially when Peter asks, “Will I have to tie my own shoes instead of letting the shoe tier do it? And brush my own teeth and comb my own hair and give myself a bath?” This shows the writer’s over exaggerated pessimism towards society and our reliance on technology.

The parents realize that this house is taking over their lives by disabling them; when everything is done for us automatically, we become disabled in the sense that we no longer want to put any effort into doing things ourselves. After George shuts off the entire house, including the nursery, the children cry and whine until he agrees to turn it on for one minute so the children can say goodbye to their “other worlds.” The children trick their parents into going back into the nursery, lock the door, and allow their parents to be eaten by the lions. This is meant to show how monstrous society has become; the children have no sense of guilt when feeding their parents to lions. It is dreadful to think that technology has made us into robots with no feelings but that is how the children in this story are represented.

One of my favorite quotes from this short story was, as mentioned above, Peter asking, “Will I have to tie my own shoes instead of letting the shoe tier do it? And brush my own teeth and comb my own hair and give myself a bath?” (14) This shows the writer’s over exaggerated pessimism towards society and our reliance on technology. This view of a disabled society is becoming more and more accurate as we become more dependent on technology.

Another quote I liked was, “Perhaps they needed a little vacation from the fantasy…” (11) I think this quote is the most ironic sentence in the entire story because it is suggesting that their lives are fictional and they need to go on a vacation in order to return to reality. Normally, people go on a vacation to enter a ‘fantasyland’ and escape from reality for a few days, but this family is proposing a vacation to bring them back to reality.