It is no secret that we live in a capitalistic society governed by consumerism. We strive for efficiency and compete to keep up with the newest technology. We want newer, cheaper, faster, sleeker, sophisticated, improved, user-friendly technologies that make tasks easier and our quality of life better. These keywords and phrases are often used with the advent of a new model or new product all together. Powerful multi-national corporations mass produce their merchandise at an alarmingly fast rate and make them globally accessible. However, with the constant influx of new technology, and especially cheaper more efficient technology, there is also an influx of waste. As new technology is invented, consumers rapidly discard older, decidedly “inferior” technology as waste in order to keep up and compete in our capitalistic society. This has occurred long before computers replaced the typewriters unknown to my generation; and now iPads, for example, are replacing computers. Once sought-after technology is thrown by the wayside and into the nearest landfill.
Similarly, as the new technology replaces older models, it also replaces the inadequacies and errors of humans. For instance, the human brain is insufficient in the fact that it cannot retain every bit of information that it processes, but the Internet can store a limitless amount of information with ease. Traditional US mail is delivered at whatever unpredictable pace humans are able sort and distribute it; this human-run system isn’t nearly as fast or reliable as an email sent at the click of a button. The popular question of our generation is: what happens if technology replaces us? Will we too be thrown by the wayside only to join the ranks of the technology that we haphazardly discarded into the nearest landfill?
In Sherry Turkle’s novel, Alone Together, she explores the relationship between humans and technology and specifically “why we expect more from technology and less from each other” (Turkle, front cover). She explores our desire to find sophisticated, improved, user-friendly technology to perform the time consuming and “insignificant” daily tasks that we do not wish to perform ourselves. Furthermore, Turkle explores whether we will eventually want to replace frustrating, unpredictable, and unfulfilling interpersonal relationships with technology that caters to our personal and emotional needs. In researching these potential desires, Turkle also explores humans’ ability to form relationships with machines and if we need them to be mutual. Can we find fulfillment in, challenge, trust, or love a robot; can a robot find fulfillment in, challenge, trust, or love us; and for that matter, can a robot find fulfillment in, challenge, trust, or love another robot?
Eli Pariser’s novel also questions the nonexistent boundaries of our relationship with technology. Currently, we allow companies like Google or Facebook to track the websites we visit and stereotype our interests based off of those websites. From the stereotyped interests, these programs develop ads catered toward what we consider important, search results according to assumed biases, and articles that their algorithms say we’d define as “newsworthy.” This technology strips us of our human ability to peruse both sides of a subject regardless of bias and to form our own opinions. I began considering what personal information we could allow programs to access in the future and how advancements in these and other programs could use the new information to their advantage. Could programs target personalized ads to consumers that would unquestionably persuade them to buy their product?
In beginning this study, I wanted to challenge myself to envision beyond what is psychologically fathomable for relationships between humans and machines, even if it meant imagining things such as interpersonal interactions, individual choice, personal/spiritual/intellectual growth, the ability to make and learn from a mistake, quirky individual differences, and everything else inherently human about human nature that I love disappearing. I also wanted discover how today’s media frames these uncertain relationship possibilities with historical, social, and political implications. After reading both Turkle and Pariser’s books, I realized that the “unfathomable” and dehumanizing relationships that I was trying to imagine between humans and advancing technology were already becoming a reality. I began considering the film industry’s portrayal of these relationships and settled on Disney-Pixar’s relatively recent film, WALL-E (2008). (http://adisney.go.com/disneyvideos/animatedfilms/wall-e/). This film is geared toward a family audience of all ages including moldable younger generations, but also my own generation and that of my elders. Its subject matter challenges current and prospective relationships between humans and technology in any combination, while highlighting the many historical, social, and political implications that reflect the beliefs of today’s consumerist generations. WALL-E, Alone Together, and The Filter Bubble depict hypothetical human/machine relationships in which humans become so dependent on technology that they lose their inherent humanity and actually replace themselves with technology. These hypothetical relationships reflect only mere elaborations on many of the real relationships that we have with technology now. More importantly, these works highlight the gradual dehumanization of today’s generations, and the generations to come, as they become knowingly or unknowingly more reliant on technology
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