So I was reading about the idea that people will be falling in love with (and having sex with) robots by 2050. The article is a bit silly - since it seems to think there'll be some sort of legal jurisdictional oversight that would be required/involved before you'd see it happen... and the whole sex with robots thing seems pretty much a near-term event...
what's more interesting here isnt the sex... it's the love thing... and man doesnt it go right after all sorts of classic sci-fi scenarios. I think where this gets interesting is the question of heuristics... when you get to a simulated personality that goes well beyond the turing test, and gets to a point of having unique opinions based upon a wealth of personal experience you're going to have something that people are capable of falling in love with. Now - that doesnt mean they will... and lots of people wont remotely consider the possibility... but i think that as those simulated entities get more and more dynamic (and, honestly, we're almost at the point where they'll be improving upon the simulations themselves... i mean... how many millions of generations of modeled synapse characteristics will machines be able to map in a minute 20 years from now?) I think there's a threshold - and it's going to be different for different people - but there's certainly a point where simulated pets are as real as live ones in the next 5 or 10 years... maybe moreso.
People should be quick to model thereafter.
Is it wrong for Harrison Ford to fall in love with Sean Young? Is it any less real? We can't know what sort of emotions any of our partners truly feel - and speaking from some experience on the subject, it's certainly reasonable that some people we choose to love are really only modeling reality as best they can. Actually - the years spent with a Borderline tend to give me a fine appreciation for the question. Besides which - to be honest - how many people ever reach that state of self-actualized behavior... and for the rest, the vast majority of humanity that never get beyond Ethics 101, that dont marvel at a sunset or a Discovery Channel program on Llamas or the sweep of the milkyway on a moonless night... will they ask for all that much in a simulated partner? When Cherry2000 ships to a store near you, or a Persecom like Chi, wont people abandon their "real" relationships for that Lucy Liu android at the drop of a hat?
This will happen faster than they think (assuming we're all still here).
Monday, October 15, 2007
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
it's certainly reasonable that some people we choose to love are really only modeling reality as best they can
really, aren't we all performing all the time? does this really only apply to some people? i was just reading an article that argued that gender is always a performance, never an expression of some innate, biological truth - that in a sense we're all always in drag, even if we're females in female drag and males in male drag. i liked it. i'll buy it, i think...but i'd apply it well beyond just gender.
sorry, i'm probably way off-topic here...ripping a few sentences out of context. still, this statement caught my eye, felt compelled to ramble...
its a good point - though i think its a continuum thing... almost everyone adjusts to the people around them and puts on some sort of 'front' - but some do so much more than others. Girls, for some reason, tend to this sort of behavior a bit moreso than boys it seems - but i've known plenty of men who were terribly disconnected with who they were.
i like to think i'm a bit more 'who gives a shit' than most - but that's the nihilist speaking. when you're busy trying to figure out wtfpankakes and instead of worrying about what people might think you speed into town to showoff your brandnew raygun - well - it tends to give one a skewed perspective.
then again - if what i'm saying holds - that most people really only model reality at some very simplistic level (and i think the fact they're so able to build inherently contradictory reality composites (god created man in his image/oil comes from dinosaurs that lived tens of millions of years ago) that that may well be an understatement relative to many people's approach to the world) then it might well be that a relationship with an artificial personality construct could be at least as fulfilling.
(and honestly... isnt the likelyhood of an interesting conversation at least a few degrees in favor of the android over meth-addicted east-texas trailerpark girl?)
almost everyone adjusts to the people around them and puts on some sort of 'front' - but some do so much more than others. Girls, for some reason, tend to this sort of behavior a bit moreso than boys it seems - but i've known plenty of men who were terribly disconnected with who they were.
i guess what i mean is a bit more radical than this. i guess i'm calling into question the whole idea that there is any true "who they were"/"who they are" - that there is any authentic core or identity beneath the various performances. what if people are more like onions - you peel away the layers and it's just empty inside?
i know, this is very fashionably pomo of me. i've been reading judith butler for the feminist theory class i'm teaching. and i find it all quite compelling. the idea that we actually become the person who we are through performances, rather than performance expressing the person who we are... and that that person is therefore contingent, fragile, fractured, and always subject to change.
i'll have to think about this more because i would still want to be able to distinguish between a person who is basically honest with themselves and a person who is self-deluded.... but the nature of that distinction would change and i haven't fully thought out the precise consequences. interesting stuff, though...
well, you're going to get more appreciation from me than most on this point - but i think there's an inherent paradox. I think there IS core personality at some base level... it may be stunted and most likely is to some degree - but it's usually there.... it's just so often terrified of the inherent loneliness of existence that it goes for the 'least energy state' of socially acceptable copied responses.
i dont know... i spent a lot of time staring into the dark manipulative eyes of a chameleon. if they really want to study the depths of core personality development i think they should spend some time with the broken BPD types... but be prepared to be scared to death (and believe me when i say it's harder when you love them).
Post a Comment