Final Exam: Complacency and Interconnectedness

If anything, Brian Christian is extremely persuasive in his book: The Most Human Human. One of the more intriguing conversations he has in the text comes in his Conclusion, where he discusses the landscape of our future coexistence with technologies. Most contend, he states, that our landscape will either consist of hell-like qualities or heaven-like, in stark contrast. In terms of a heaven-like future, supporters "envision a moment when we make machines smarter than ourselves, who make machines smarter than themselves, an so on, and the whole thing accelerates exponentially toward a massive ultra-intelligence that we can barely fathom" (263).  This is an idea referred to as "Singularity", where supporters envision a time that we become one with technology, or mentally enter into an eternally electric afterlife (263). While they call it a "heaven" of sorts, it seems far from it to me. In their explanation of the acceleration of technology, it sounds more of like a cancer: rebuilding faster and stronger over and over until a technology is formed that far exceeds the capabilities of the human mind. I find it hard to believe in this theory, perhaps just because I do not see something like this being capable of happening anytime in the near future. It's possible, I guess, but like Christian I see it as a little dramatic. In contrast, those who believe in a hell-like future of coexistence with technology envision machines blacking out our cities and our sun, in an attempt to "siphon on our body heat forever"- the Terminator (1984) outlook, if you will. Both of these outlooks seem to count out the human race as being capable of changing, or competing with future technology. They seem to imply that humans will just wave the metaphorical white flag and conform to technologies advances without question, or that the technology will be so much smarter than us that we won't have a choice. These ideas of conformation or the lack of competitive nature in the human race is what makes me view these theories as dramatic--I guess I just envision us as putting up more of a fight.  I agree with Christian in more of a purgatorial future, one he describes as "the place where the flawed, good-hearted go to be purified-and tested-and to come out better on the other side" (263). Humans will forever have the ability to re-evaluate, to go back to the drawing board and attack from a new angle. We learn, instinctively, to come back smarter and attack innovatively - something that only occurs when we take a loss. A loss would teach us to avoid complacency. 

When contemplating the future of mankind's relationship with AI, we tend to only fear a time when AI is unrecognizable- or a technology so human that we cannot differentiate between the two. Christian reminds us, however, that we should also fear humans become too machine-like. When considering this reversal, I could not help but think of the film Her (2013), in which the protagonist (Theo) engages in an emotional and sexual relationship with his operating system (Samantha). While watching the film, I realized how possible it is for our technological landscape to merge into our human society through the use of operating systems as exhibited in the film. We are close already, as we carry smart phones, tablets, and laptops wherever we go. We depend on technology to wake us up in the morning before work, to remind us where to be at which times, to monitor our heart-rate when we exercise, and to monitor our sleep cycle (new forms of technology allow this, such as Apple watches, FitBits, etc., and are becoming more and more popular everyday). The film shows, through Theo and Samantha's relationship, how disconnected and alienated humans could become by fully embracing these technological advances- the interconnectedness of humans and technology. Theo gets to the point where all he does is communicate with Samantha, becoming completely alienated from everyone else around him. As the film goes on, there are times when Theo seems more machine-like than human. He begins to communicate better with Samantha than he does his human friends around him. As Christian states, this is undoubtedly a threat of which we should be more conscious. This made me wonder, are humans closer to becoming more like machines than machines are to becoming human? Sometimes, I believe this to be the case. Perhaps if we realized how mechanical our day to day lives are becoming because of our interconnectedness with technology, we would not even consider making a technology so human-like. While we should be worried of the threat of this interconnectedness from both perspectives equally, perhaps the greater threat is us becoming more mechanical. I say this because when looking at the people around me, it seems we may be closer to becoming machines than the machines are to becoming human.