The one about the Posthuman…

I’m not actually typing this.

This is the output from a digital copy of myself Sean that was uploaded to the net to do my his Ethno-blog so I he can have more free-time.  God, it sucks being the digital copy.  He’s outside playing football soccer and I’m here balancing his checkbook and reading.  Well I call it reading so you can comprehend the method in which I absorb information but honestly its more like dropping a new, dry sponge into a cup.  I’m not bragging or anything just keepin’ it real. I could do this forever really——-

Well that joke got old but after reading the “posthuman” readings for this week thats the frame of mind it left me in.

“What if a computer behaved like a person?”

Katherine Hayles extrapolates (one of my top ten fav words, fyi) that question from the autobiographical novel Galatea 2.2 by Richard Powers.  (She also gleened the question,  “What if a person behaved like a computer?” from the novel but thats much too interesting to do first so I’ll save it for later in this post.)

The creation of a digital being who’s that’s capable of being as cognizant as an adult human is beyond interesting and frankly a bit scary.  Dealing with the irrational and emotionally driven decisions of a human being is problematic enough. Now I must start mentally preparing myself for the advent and adoption of an sentient computer program?

Well lets think about the automated phone machine.  You know those answering services that employ voice recognition software to return simple results to callers who probably had hoped to speak to a real person.  A miracle of modern technology right?

Well trying to get through to a machine that can’t understand you is frustrating.  It could be the result of a bad cell connection or it could be the result of a glitch in the program.  Either way one could argue that even with the most irrational human there is at least the hope that a human could possibly discern what it is the caller is trying to say (i.e. A as in apple, C as in cat, etc..) but what about the sentient computer program?  If the computer is able to think and adapt like a human it isn’t too far fetched to believe that at some point the line separating the automated phone operator and the “real” phone operator will begin to blur.  One day you may call and get all the information you needed, hang up and never know for sure if you were talking to a program or a person.

I’m not worried about that really but I’m more worried when my boss starts acting like a computer.

“What if a person behaved like a computer?”  Well what if my boss was plugged into a terminal at my companies corporate HQ and he logs in and out at exactly the time his shift starts.  He doesn’t take bathroom breaks, never takes sick days and is a stickler for productivity.

There is no human element involved.  If a robot was riding a horse would he ever take a break and understand that the fleshy horse needs to rest and drink some water?  Or would he push the horse past its physical limit?  I suppose if the computer was programmed to evolve and to adapt, the understanding that flesh based entities are more fragile than a metal based machine would eventually emerge but there would be a learning curve.  Hopefully the horse, in this case me the human with the computer program-minded boss, wouldn’t die at the hands of an overzealous overseer focused on keeping deadlines (pun intended).

Sean

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