There is also a recent series of commercials advertising a Siri-like technology, and while I can't remember the name of the product or its company, I do remember finding something a little troubling: the phone's owner would ask his phone questions about the news or weather, and while the voice was in the middle of a response he would suddenly interrupt and ask something else. The interrupting, even to something inanimate, seemed very rude to me, and led me to think that if we became used to these kinds of robots we might become callous or take the technology's obedience for granted as it grew more sophisticated.
It is a sort of far-flung, outlandish science-fiction idea, but it does have some small basis in fact. The Watson commercials, as mentioned and linked above, show a very intelligent robot who freely admits he does not know love, which I think is a dangerous combination. It may take centuries - if ever - for robots to become intelligent enough to overpower humans in any way, but I think I will always view this kind of technology with some wariness; maybe I am old-fashioned, but it doesn't seem quite prudent for humans to interact with robots in such a personal capacity. I know the voices may only be representations of the larger, silent software present in the gadgets, but all the same: I do not think there are many benefits to Siri organizing and reading your emails and calendars when you can very easily do that yourself.
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| Watson on "Jeopardy!" And winning. |
Shanken, Edward. Art and Electronic Media. New York: Phaidon Press, 2014. Print.
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