Robots

While I was watching the movie and reading Turkle, I was shocked and disturbed the entire time. I kept saying to myself, “People can’t really feel this way towards roots!” But then towards the end of the film, I found myself saying, “Aw, the robots love each other,” knowing that they don’t have true emotions. This just proves that in only a short amount of time we can become attached.

In our society today we are so scared to accept our true feelings and share them with anyone due to rejection or humiliation. So instead we latch on to inanimate objects that will never judge us or let us down. In the reading, the children relied on the Furbies to understand their feelings because they might not get enough attention from their parents. In the film, the woman who adopted the baby robot did so because she was afraid to fail and disappoint her husband. The elderly man relied on a hologram because he could not let go of his past. All of these feelings are unhealthy, in my opinion. Life is not always going to be perfect. Things happen that we cannot change, but that is not a reason to not face our emotions. Relying on a robot to help us heal will never really help us get over the hard times. People have real emotions and life experiences that robots can never have.

In conclusion, I am on Turkles side in the fact that our society is becoming consumed with inanimate objects and we need to turn away from them. I do believe that technology does have its benefits, but empathy and emotional simulation is not one of them. We need to leave that to human beings.