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| Alone Together by Sherry Turkle. |
How bad have we failed each other as humans?
Reading Turkle’s book entitled “Alone Together,” I wonder what the
future holds for mankind. Watching movies like Real steel and Wall-E is very
entertaining, but I am not quite sure how we would feel if those cute robots
lived among us.
Sherry Turkle argues in her book that technology is moving towards replacing humans in all aspect. In my view robots can positively affect our daily lives by doing the dirty, dangerous and dull jobs that us humans may not want to do. For example, car manufacturing companies are currently using robotic arms to handle dangerous and repetitive tasks previously done by humans. We should, nevertheless, be concerned with the increase of robots in the market place designed to deal with our needs such as Paro, Kismet, Cog, Tamagotchi, Furbies, AIBO and My Real Baby, who mere name indicates a human like quality. Turkle goes on to highlight this concern by stating that, “instead of robots simply taking on difficult or dangerous jobs for us, robots would try to be our friends.”
It is very exciting to see how far mankind has progress technologically, but it is also sad to see the need for such technology. We, as humans, must have failed one another really bad that many of us have now turned to robots to fill in our emotional gaps. I completely agree with Turkle when she says that, “insecure in our relationship and anxious about intimacy, we look to technology for ways to be in relationships and protect ourselves from them at the same time.” I believe that we should be very cautious when it comes to depending on a machine which has never experience emotions, such as love, hate, loss and pain, to help us with our emotions. While programed to act in a specific way, robots can never really understand our feelings.
Sherry Turkle argues in her book that technology is moving towards replacing humans in all aspect. In my view robots can positively affect our daily lives by doing the dirty, dangerous and dull jobs that us humans may not want to do. For example, car manufacturing companies are currently using robotic arms to handle dangerous and repetitive tasks previously done by humans. We should, nevertheless, be concerned with the increase of robots in the market place designed to deal with our needs such as Paro, Kismet, Cog, Tamagotchi, Furbies, AIBO and My Real Baby, who mere name indicates a human like quality. Turkle goes on to highlight this concern by stating that, “instead of robots simply taking on difficult or dangerous jobs for us, robots would try to be our friends.”
It is very exciting to see how far mankind has progress technologically, but it is also sad to see the need for such technology. We, as humans, must have failed one another really bad that many of us have now turned to robots to fill in our emotional gaps. I completely agree with Turkle when she says that, “insecure in our relationship and anxious about intimacy, we look to technology for ways to be in relationships and protect ourselves from them at the same time.” I believe that we should be very cautious when it comes to depending on a machine which has never experience emotions, such as love, hate, loss and pain, to help us with our emotions. While programed to act in a specific way, robots can never really understand our feelings.
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