Our Disordered Relationship to Technology
…This idea of technology being better than nothing—and then somehow, better than anything—which has developed incrementally from television to the internet to gaming to social media is now leading to the widespread integration of robots into daily life. “The idea of sociable robots suggests that we might navigate intimacy by skirting it. People seem comforted by the belief that if we alienate or fail each other, robots will be there, programmed to provide simulations of love.” As Americans are having children later and later, and the baby boomers move into old age, robots will become a viable option for tending to kids, to old people, or to anyone we simply don’t have the energy for. Many may feel this sounds like science fiction or something only the very young might live to see, but the future has arrived, and 1st-world cultures—especially the most individualistic of them all—seem to be more relieved than concerned:
A forty-four year old woman says, ‘After all, we never know how another person feels. People put on a good face. Robots would be safer.’ A thirty-year-old man remarks, ‘I’d rather talk to a robot. Friends can be exhausting. The robot will always be there for me. And whenever I’m done, I can walk away.’. . . In a complicated world, robots seem a simple salvation.
At the heart of this new trend is the fact that technology creates the illusion of having our needs met without having to be beholden to other people to do it. Why negotiate over which show to watch when each family member can simply go to his own screen? Why get involved with some clumsy community effort when one can practice world domination online? Why make oneself vulnerable to another person by asking for help or advice when a computer can do a better job—and with no risk of exposure?
During the mid-70s’ launch of ELIZA, the first significant companion robot, Sherry Turkle observed that although the test students knew full well that ELIZA had been trained to respond to strings of words with various restatements and had no comprehension of anything they were saying, nonetheless they wanted to chat with it. More than this, they wanted to be alone with it. They wanted to tell it their secrets. Faced with a program that makes the smallest gesture suggesting it can empathize, people want to say something true. . . . Most commonly they begin with ‘How are you today?’ . . . but four or five interchanges later, many are on to ‘My girlfriend left me,’ ‘I am worried that I might fail organic chemistry,’ or ‘My sister died.’
Over the past several decades, our progressive baby steps in turning towards technology for succor have led us to prefer confidantes who won’t judge us and have no needs of their own. We, like infants, want all the focus on ourselves, and the robotics movement is happy to oblige. What began with children’s toys such as Furby and Zhu Zhu has now given rise to the “huggable, baby seal robot Paro” being aggressively marketed as a companion for the elderly. Whereas real pets are a proven source of comfort and meaning for often-isolated seniors, these robotic companions pose serious questions. Trained to echo their owners’ moods, a tender touch will cause Paro to turn sympathetically and simulate concern. An old woman appears comforted by this, but how many “generations” removed is this from the real love she once knew from her own parents, gave to her own children, heard about in the promises of a loving God. Paro is not the grown son she longs to have visit her in the senior center, or even a warm-blooded pet that might actually fall into a depression after her death. Her robotic companion is a façade of love, the next best thing, her only remaining option. Experts have begun to recognize that “our willingness to engage with the inanimate does not depend on being deceived but on wanting to fill in the blanks.” And our societal willingness to allow machines to do the work of loving and caring for those in the human family is a reflection of the very real sin of apathy.
“[This] is all too recognizable in the United States, where the term ‘granny dumping’ is used to define the practice of anonymously depositing our elderly on the doorsteps of nursing homes, and where urban hospitals have been known to abandon indigent patients on skid row, some still in their hospital gowns and with IVs in their arms. But even as such outrages are exposed, we are beset by a curious silence; the more that society’s ills surface in such evil ways, the less able we are, it seems to detect any evil within ourselves, let alone work effectively together to fix what is wrong. The philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre finds that while our ‘present age is perhaps no more evil than a number of preceding periods . . . it is evil in one special way at least, namely the extent to which we have obliterated . . . [our] consciousness of evil.” (Kathleen Norris, Acedia and Me)
If evil is systemic, cultural, and pervasive, then sin is the intimate response to that evil perpetrated by an individual in a specific and human way. Often times it appears more tragic—even pitiful— than nefarious. Let us close out the chapter with the example of Howard. Like every teenage boy or girl, fifteen-year old Howard longs for advice about navigating the social challenges of adolescence. He doesn’t consider talking to his father because, as he sees it, his father “has knowledge of basic things, but not enough about high school.” Although this is merely a restatement of the timeless and universal teenage cry, “You wouldn’t understand,” Howard feels certain that true wisdom is possible through artificial intelligence. After all, a robot—which modern children describe as being “alive enough” for their purposes—could monitor all of their e-mails, calls, Web searches, and messages. This machine could supplement its knowledge with its own searches and retain a nearly infinite amount of data. . . . Such search and storage and artificial intelligence . . . might tune itself to their exact needs . . . as Howard puts it, ‘how different social choices have worked out.’ Having knowledge and your best interest at heart, ‘it would be good to talk to . . . about romantic matters. And problems of friendship.’ (Sherry Turkle, Alone Together)
If given a chance to talk with a companion robot, Howard claims that he would first ask “about happiness and exactly what that is, how do you gain it?” He would then seek understanding about human fallibility, and if he could learn to avoid making mistakes. These used to be the lessons we learned in families, in communities, in church. In our desire to mediate the challenges of relationships, we have triangulated, putting technology in the driver’s seat between two humans, and removing God from the picture entirely. The more society encourages flesh and blood needs to be met by inanimate objects, the more uncomfortable we’ll become with other people—their needs, mess, weakness, yes, but so, too, their warmth, wisdom, grace, and love.
When young Howard is asked about other ways robots might be useful in the future, there is a tender and telling note of altruism. He hopes that they “might be specially trained to take care of ‘the elderly and children,’ something he doesn’t see the people around him as much interested in. It is a truth so glaring that even religious skeptics must confess that we’ve taken a wrong turn. “Religious conviction is largely beneficent,” says biologist E.O. Wilson. “Religion . . . nourishes love, devotion, and above all, hope.” Psychologist William Damon adds, “Children will not thrive . . . unless they acquire a living sense of what some religious traditions have called transcendence: a faith in, and devotion to, concerns that are considered larger than the self.” In other words, the dark truths of homo incurvatus in se in the 21st century are apparent not only to Christians but to anyone who cares to notice.
From RECLAIMING THE WISDOM OF HOMO INCURVATUS IN SE: “MAN TURNED IN ON HIMSELF” AS AN ENTRY POINT FOR THE DISCUSSION OF SIN IN 21ST-CENTURY AMERICA by Heather Choate Davis
Heather Choate Davis 