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“I don’t think we think unless it is about me.” – Kurt Cobain
More than twenty years ago I wrote my first few lines of computer code using a language called BASIC. At university I studied Computer Science. After few years working in the IT industry, I did not enjoy working began exploring potential common grounds between psychology and technology.
Between 2004 and 2006 I conducted research surveys about online dating behaviour and this laid the foundation for the work I have been doing ever since. My own love affair with technology included those whom I hate to love (Web), as well as those whom I love to hate (Microsoft Windows) and those whom I hate unenthusiastically.
In time, my work brought me to the conclusion that we have become obsessed with ourselves in a way I had never imagined would be possible. Smartphones and “selfies” are now de rigueur all over the world from Cape Town to China. The “smart” in smartphones implies the early stages of artificial intelligence (AI) because the devices remember, learn and anticipate our behaviour. Siri on iPhone is the first attempt at AI for the masses.
What is the obsession with ourselves that drives us? What could be the drive that stimulates the increasing role of technology in our self-identity? We no longer look into the mirror to see our reflection, we look into our screens for validation: “iThink therefore iAm”
With the rise of the Internet we are falling in love with ourselves mediated through cyberspace. The machines we have created, the smartphones, the “androids”, are the real plug-in drug not television because they respond to our whims. Whereas television streams images into your mind, with your smartphones, you stream your life to the world like The Truman Show.
After watching the movie Her (2013), I disagree with most reviews that it’s an exploration of a fundamental question “what is love?” We may as well ask are you in-love with with your favourite celebrity? This is fantasy, maybe even obsession, as in most cases we will never meet them.
We do not fall in love with another person, only with how they make us feel. We don’t even need to be with the them to fall in love – in fact it works better when we’re not. Put another way, we fall in love when we are remembering or imagining how they make us feel about ourselves. It’s always about the reflection principles.
Now, when we’re lonely it’s probably because we don’t like what we see in the reflection.
Someone once referred to falling in-love as the ultimate form of self-hypnosis. We have all become addicted to our emotions. The emotions is what gives us the experience, the stimulus to form our responses accordingly. It’s always about us, not them, at the deepest levels. It’s not a stretch say this is the road to narcissism.
There is a plethora of self-help literature that teaches you to love yourself first. I relied on this extensively during my life coaching sessions. My starting point was always: how can we expect other people to love us if we do not love ourselves first?
AI implies a computer system, which learns from us about us, and about its environment. It has been portrayed as dangerous or negative in films series like “The Terminator” and “The Matrix” movies. But now we’re seeing a change in direction to a more personal experience with AI after Simone (Al Pacino) and Her (2013).
In sadness, there is loss, there is loneliness but never is there narcissism as we’ve come to know it on social media. Selfies – photos people take by themselves, of themselves – are encouraged. The experience is singular, alone, by yourself and for yourself. The audience, your followers and fans are the key to your validation, only when they click LIKE on your experiences, does it seem to become real.
So modern experience is limited and almost invalid until they are validated by others. This may be why it’s possible to fall in love with AI, because of the built-in validation or reflection. The feedback about yourself and who you are, and that you exist, maybe that you matter after all. So with AI, a human being is no longer needed to validate us.
Somewhere in the past it was acceptable, even taught that we don’t need anyone else to validate our existence. AI promises the perfect response to our stimulus. Allow me to conclude with a common Chinese saying adapted for AI, “Be careful what you wish for, you may just get it and it may be more what you asked for.”