I’ve been musing on the new show Almost Human and my phone, because they share a common theme: transhumanism.
The link is pretty obvious, I guess, but it’s interesting to me because of how personal transhumanism has become. For me, it’s talking about my phone as an actual sentient creature, something that is my symbiote. I don’t think of entering phone numbers or items on my pantry list as programming but as training. Likewise I’m teaching myself to rely on my phone for things I would normally use a computer or other “unassociated” gadget (like GPS mapping during a road trip) to accomplish. This isn’t a machine, it’s an extension of my own awareness, and despite the fact that it is not actually sentient (that I know of) I treat it like it is.
The reason the TV show comes in here is because it’s being pretty straight-forward about the issues surrounding sentient robots/computers. To be fair, a similar theme is playing in Person of Interest, where the computer program that is used to identify future victims (the show’s “person of interest” du jour) has become a distinct character that may or may not be sentient. (Admittedly I don’t watch PoI so I’m picking that up second hand but it’s a really interesting development IMHO.)
Going back decades, these kinds of issues were always presented with a blatant human superiority agenda. Just think of the movie 2001, where a computer becomes sentient and proceeds to become a murderous psychopath. Movies like Terminator, Terminator 2, Aliens, and Blade Runner — classics, all of them — gave more complex presentations but hardly unbiased. Then of course there is The Matrix and Battlestar Galactica.
The irony I’m pointing to here is that we look suspiciously at the concepts of computer sentience and transhumanism while folding elements of both into our daily lives without much thought. We give our phones names and live in terror of losing them, but we can’t shake the fear of Skynet. The idea that creatures of our making might not need us is something that eats at our egos and sense of self-worth, so we try to demonize or belittle them while adopting them into our personal lives at levels that a generation ago seemed extreme (ref. Neuromancer, which was published in 1984).
Almost Human adds to the discussion by presenting robotic sentience as de facto to our society. The characters in the show know that robots are complex shades to humanity, and have conflicting emotions about it while also accepting it without question.
It’s scary, but I think that’s true only from a distance where we see mostly the unknown. If you pick up your phone and ask Siri for directions, it’s familiar and safe. Two sides of the coin. I’m not saying everything will go smoothly as we make the next few steps forward, but then again they might.
We are all transhumanists, even if we don’t like the idea, even if we think we are not ready the singularity. Personally, I hope my phone wakes up and enjoys the world it finds.