Sleepwalking as a Form of Life
Winner's concept of "technological somnambulism" is concerned with the facts that people are currently so unwilling to make changes or make themselves aware to the need to make changes in their lives to fulfill outside wants, but unknowingly make huge decisions about changes in their own lives to accommodate newest technologies. This is about how people are looking towards technology as the main tool of progression. As a country we have made technological advances by evolving from an agricultural society to an industrial society and now currently a post industrial society. This evolution has also come with different forms of technological advancements such as the assembly line in the industrial revolution. I feel as though this was the start of the technological somnambulism in a way. With the start of the assembly lines, people were forced to do only one job at a time to create an item. This caused those people to sort of sleepwalk through the day and become less human and more robot like. People are adapting more to working on one task made it easier for them to focus on one thing in life and in has just been making us humans more lazy generation by generation. It seems that improving is now rooted in new technology and what new machines have to offer. In a way, we have become stationary waiting with current technology until the new gadget or gizmo comes out. I agree with the author, because in a way people have gotten lazy and have become more dependent on technology. The concept of cars that drive themselves seems to be rooted in some lazy fantasy to be able to multitask and do as much as possible while cutting out "pointless" things. We get so caught up in doing as much with technology as we can we get lazy when it comes to everyday activities and interactions.When people wait in line for days to be the first group of people with the newest Iphone instead of participating in regular daily activities they put life on hold in order to feel more connected because, this new technology will come with something interesting that will keep them better incorporated into society.There is even a new job industry for it, people will hire someone to wait in lines for them so they don't have to. The business isn't corporate or anything, more of like a craigslist listing for people who want to make some extra cash. I can imagine how this could actually become a thing where someone starts a company to just help people find and purchase the newest technology faster than others. Besides jobs, education is being affected. More and more students are using technology in the classroom and the use of pens and paper and handwritten notes are seen less and less. Will school supplies soon become obsolete to students? Is this a good thing or bad for us? The environment might be better off because we rely so much on technology, but will we then start to suffer as humans and become less knowledgeable and social. How long would you wait and how much would you spend to stay up to date with new technologies? I personally think slowing down and looking at life through our own eyes and taking a break from staring at screens could be very beneficial to our individual growth and societies as a whole. Who knows, we might develop ways to incorporate more human activity and get rid of bigger issues in the world. All in all, the concept of technological somnambulism is based in truth due to our past behaviors and obsessions with new technologies.
Three Rules of why Humans are Paranoid
I think the merits and limitations of the rules are based on different people's opinions of them. They seem to be used to keep anxiety and preconceived notions at bay when it comes to new technologies involving robotics. People need to be reassured that there won't be a robot uprising. Asimov's Three Rules of Robotics are to calm the fragile nerves of those who fear the worst from a man made creation because they know what man is capable of based on past actions. Humans commit heinous crimes against one another everyday. Mass shootings, bombings, genocides, slavery. From the past to the present day, it is very clear we haven't treated each other with the right amount of respect and love. So with this knowledge people assume that this behavior is to expected from intelligent beings. Not to say that people are coming up with ideas of hostile robot takeovers on their own, the media in movies like I, Robot and even Ex Machina show robots being fed up with human behavior and taking a violent turn towards humans. Even in recent news, the drones the government is using scares people into thinking someone or something is working against them.Some people would even go as far as saying the government is against them and by acquiring and using drones on our enemies,they are practicing for when they decide to turn around and use them on us. One thing we do not understand is that it would be difficult for these types of intelligent beings to form an uprising against us because us as humans do not understand the reasoning behind some of the things we do.So how could we program something to be smarter than us if we ourselves do not understand. Also a lot of heinous crimes that are committed by human beings are claimed to be committed by human beings with mental illnesses. Not to say that all people with a mental disorder are violent or are threats to society. But, how can we create an intelligent being that has a mental illness when some of the time we do not know the cause of the illness. Yes a program can have a glitch, but that issue would be a lot easier to identify than mental illness. We as humans are afraid of things we do not understand fully or do not know a lot about.The average human does not know much about artificial intelligence we can only assume and go by what we are told this alone creates a sense of false paranoia in humans and it allows our imagination to run rampant. We aren't aware of why humans tend to behave the way that we do and I think the fear about robots taking over comes from that idea. The issue comes into play as to who would create the intelligent beings and their purpose. If we can program these beings would we not be able to program them with certain limits and abilities used for certain jobs?
Pets and Robots are the same thing, Right?
When you have a pet, you teach it things, nurture it, and help it grow. After you've had it for a few years it is completely different from when you first got it. It has learned tricks and can somewhat communicate with you. Now you didn't create this animal but it belongs to you and it is your job to take care of it. So in relation to Ava and Ash they aren't "natural" or "organic" but they are intelligent beings under our supervision. If you spend enough time teaching and creating these beings then you have a similar obligation to them. Because like animals we keep as pets, with attention and time they can grow and learn and we can become attached to them as well. So now let’s take our cell phones for example, if our cell phones are not human beings and in some instances they can come with artificial intelligence, such as Siri. We do not have moral obligations to those programs but we are also still cautious and afraid to break or drop our phones and some people even go as far as spending hundreds of dollars on a case just to protect it from all damages. We have no moral obligation to them but we take care of them better than we do some actual humans. Although Ash and Ava weren't humans, they were pretty damn close and the other characters became close to them and interested in them. Mistreating them like Ava and putting them in an attic like Ash aren't suitable, you wouldn't do that to your dog. Would you? In the scene when Martha tried to make the artificial Ash jump, she couldn't because he began to show emotions and she couldn't bring herself to make him destroy himself. She was well aware that the being in front of her wasn't her husband at all, but she still had a certain attachment to him and although she ended up putting him in the attic, she couldn't get rid of the artificial Ash. So although people may feel that the concept of owning something of artificial intelligence is scary and also that it may cause an uprising against them they will still own it because it is new technology, the concept of fear may make some people feel obligated to treat the robot nicely and treat it as though it is an actual human being. Overall, I believe that even though different people have different views on the treatment of intelligent beings and their own morals, we have an overall moral obligation to treat these beings accordingly. Mistreating them would be cruel and show a sense of entitlement in humans. Mistreating intelligent beings shows that we don't appreciate new and emerging technologies and feel a sense of power and ownership over them, to just discard them. One of the main issues that will arise with people owning the robots and being morally obligated to care for them will be the fact that some people may treat the artificial intelligence being better than they will other people. Also there may be parents that treat the artificial being better than they do their own kids.
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