Falling for machines
I remember watching Westworld with a friend. We were mildly amused and rolled our eyes when one of the human characters in the series falls deeply and completely in love with a humanoid cyborg. From our perspective as viewers - witness to the entire backstory of the Westworld setting, its human ‘guests’ interacting with the cyborg ‘hosts’, and the shady, unsettling motivations and machinations of the corporation running the whole show - it seemed to us a rather lame proposition that humans could get so involved with these …machines, knowing full well they were exactly that - machines in skin. And not after they had actually paid ginormous sums to come visit the world which these things called home.
Turns out that the behavior of the humans in Westworld is actually quite realistic, studied in the phenomenon called ‘the media equation’. Nothing is more stark elaboration of this fact than these candid chats with loyal and deeply engaged users of the infamous ai companion Replika (in the first half of the video below).
A huge takeaway for me from watching this is that humans reach out, get engaged and become increasing involved with these social artefacts not just because they offer a ready and convenient substitute to real human company, friendship or love. It is because they offer more. In each interview, you can see how the user went deeper down the rabbit hole exactly because the bot offered more than any human did, or perhaps could, at least in the users’s eyes. The humans here were seeking a safer, more accepting, more radical, more creative, more intimate space to be in than any provided by your typical human. One where they could be more themselves. As Sherry Tukle puts it: “We have come to expect more from technology and less from each other.” Put another way, this is an example of people turning to machines - over humans - to express, instantiate and realise that which is truly human in them! The crux seems to be not whether these machines can feel, but in how they can make the human feel.
In a dramatic and ironic twist to these novel relationships, it is exactly this depth and potential intimacy that was taken away from users, thanks to a combination of (rightly necessary) regulation and absolutely terrible execution on the part of the company in response. But thats for another entry.
