In Chapter 2 of Shelly Turkle’s Alone Together, she talks at length about robots and technology more broadly as having this ‘alive’ quality. In particular, the fact that like us robots, like us, make decisions based on ‘data’. The difference between us and robots however, is that this data can be uploaded and does not have to be ‘experienced’ in a conventional sense. In particular she talks about people who would honestly rather confide in a robot than a human being in a romantic situation. She brings up the example of Howard, who would rather confide in a robot than his own father about a prospective dating situation (50-51). She quotes Howard as saying “People are risky. Robots are safe”.
This use of the language of ‘risky’ and safe’ is interesting to me. This is because it implies that humans are unpredictable, whereas robots are. In this instance it would mean that the robot would not give ‘bad advice’, but this inherently means that it is predictable in this way. This language to me could also be used to describe the situation between Theodore and the OS as described by his ex-wife in the film Her. She accuses him of being in a relationship with an OS because he ‘can’t handle real emotions’.
These two situations for me feed into the claim that robots (and technology more broadly) create a kind of narcissism. This is because by creating predictability you eliminate what French thinker Emmanuel Levinas calls in his work Totality and Infinity the “Otherness of the Other”, or that which makes humans human: that is their inherent spontaneity and unpredictability. Levinas says that you cannot know the Other, because you cannot know that which is not you or within your ‘world’ as yourself. He goes on to say that humans have an impulse to attempt to make the Other the Same (that is within their ‘world’) because it is easier to predict what the ‘Same’ will do, and it feeds a very similar kind of narcissism. It is this that creates lack of respect for other humans, colonization of indigenous peoples, and other practices that result from this lack of reciprocity. It also creates an impulse to create likenesses of yourself or find likenesses of yourself in others.
My question leading from all this is: Can these two aforementioned situations (Howard in Turkle and Theodore in Her) be likened to the human impulse to create predictability? What I mean is that these two situations seem to have an inherent impulse to not encounter an unpredictable Other, with a preference for a predictable Same. Do robots feed our desire to create the Same? And if so, what are the ethical implications of this phenomenon? Does this desire to create predictable robots reflect an increasingly inability to encounter the Other on its own terms?
Citation for Totality and Infinity:
Lévinas, Emmanuel. Totality and Infinity; an Essay on Exteriority. Pittsburgh: Duquesne UP, 1969. Print.
I really like that explanation of the Other from Levinas. In a way it points back to narcissism in that you are only recognizing yourself even when you interact with others, but it leaves room to expand the self through the Other. I am adopting this take on human relations. I also like how you reconcile the narcissism issue with idea that this recognition of the self in others is empathy and just plain necessary for co-existence on earth.
Miles,
The analysis of Turkle’s phrase is rather excellent. I personally think she would freak if she saw the movie “Her” As you so diligently note, the movie completely plays with this notion that robots are safe, because they have programmed responses and cannot have the ability to be spontaneous as it were. That to me is what makes human contact so unique from our workings with machines, is we can be unpredictable. It is true this can be risky, but it can rewarding in the same stroke. I’m thinking of the first we say “I love to you” to someone who is not a genetically or marriage relative, it can be scary because of the unpredictability, the lack of safety as it were.
Really great post and work cited page!
” and it feeds a very similar kind of narcissism. It is this that creates lack of respect for other humans, colonization of indigenous peoples, and other practices that result from this lack of reciprocity.”
This is so true! This is definitely one of my biggest concerns about the reasons and the way we treat technology and specifically the idea of artificial intelligence. I agree that it does say more about the condition in which humas exist. It is also something that we can observe a bit more of we think about the communities which champion these specific innovations as well.
All of the questions you ask are great and while I can’t even think about answering them I think that what you suggest leads me to believe that instead of technology bringing us together, there may be the argument that we are only being encouraged and brought together with groups that fit that sameness. In other words, we are beginning to move on a dolly zoom where we get closer as we put distance between ourselves and the “other” .