For the past few centuries, we humans have structured ourselves to be more like machines as we augment and flourish through time. Nonetheless, we have become so indulged into the idea of mechanical development that we have neglected the authenticity of human nuance.
The deficit of human connection is increasing along with the numbness of face to face experiences, while we adapt to digital interfaces as a source of conversing. The gradient incline within the production of massively evolved robots and computers, creates an unsettling line of questioning that lingers in the depths of my mind. Are robots becoming more like humans or are humans becoming more like robots?
A computer scientist by the name of Alan Turing invented an innovative testing system called, The Turing Test, in the year 1950.The Turing Test was designed to evaluate artificial intelligence by asking a series of questions to both humans and robots while deciphering which was human and which was robot in order to map out the improvement of A.I. Although the test was established to track the growth of robots ability to mimic human behavior, a professor by the name of Brett Frischmann argued that there should be a reverse Turing Test which disposes how identical humans are to robots.
There have been various cases where customers are talking to customer service representatives and not completely knowing if they are talking to a human or robot. Many of the cases resulted in the conclusion that they were actually speaking to a human. It seems as if our repetitive use of technology is slowly morphing us into robots endowed with consciousness.
The invention of the Turing Test, evaluating humans opens another can of worms that leads to the elusive question, “what does it mean to be human”? For hundreds, even thousands of years, religious teachers and philosophers have debated over the implications of what it means to be human. As A.I continues to look, sound and respond to questions as accurately as a human would, births the conundrum of what the true identity of being human is in a more visceral context.
The majority of our society’s trend of dehumanization, stems from the mindless fetishization and reliance of new technology along the innate trust that we provide to it. For example, the terms and condition contracts come across as an innocuous electronic arrangement for updates; however, we blindly check the grey box and accept routinely without exception. Millions of people react to this stimulus everyday without knowing what they are accepting. This programmed conditioning is one of the most robotic tendencies that we endure in our day and age. The constant phone checking and impulsive internet browsing that we indulge in is programing us to have mechanical personalities. Where the future goes with this robotic nuance could be unprecedentedly mind bottling, yet unpredictable. Maybe we are robots and robots are humans programing us in the most subtle way possible.
Sacred Thinking 