Emotionally Plastic

Maybe there's not a way to argue it through philosophical or mathematical avenues, but that doesn't really matter to me. Machines do not think on the same terms as humans do and are not comparable "beings" (if you can call them that.) Humans are the creators of the machine, so therefore, machines can try to be "better," more innovative, smarter, but behind every program there is a maker, a human maker. It's as simple as that. I mean, computers can mock human thought because their abilities derive from human thought, but they lack emotion, which is a large impetus for why humans do or think the way they do. It's not only emotion they lack, but an array of human traits. I don't think the argument should be: Who is "better:" man or machine? We are inherently different things, with different skills, but it should be common knowledge that we, us human beings, control what the machine does. Therefore, there should be no human insecurity that the human race will lose against some computer-driven world takeover. Ridiculous.

Here is a news article showing how voice technology just can't seem to get it right: Read Me a Story, Mr. Roboto

Product Price Dilemma

I have a problem: I have dry hair. Every time I would go to a hair stylist for a new cut, I would plead with the hair dresser to give me a solution to my problem. "Tell me of a new elixir that replaces my brittle ends with nourished tresses! Please I'll do anything!"

By now, I know hair biology and the reasons for dry hair. I've tried the solutions that web pages offer: hot oil treatments, weekly protein treatments, leave-in-conditioners, good products vs. bad products, alcohol is a no-no etc. But none of these solutions seem to give me my silky desire.

And each time, the hair dresser, delighted by my plight for answers, tells me I must use salon-based products. "Stay away from nasty drugstore products!" they warn. Well, I've done that and spent a good bit of money. And it hasn't worked.

The sneaky little scissor-weilding stylists are trying to pull a fast one on me, but the fraudulent suggestion that price makes the biggest difference does not work on me! I've done my personal research! From my experience, there is no difference between the salon and the generic products. Maybe we can account my skepticism for the ineffectiveness of more expensive salon products, but I think not. I wanted the more expensive products to work but instead they have the same effects as the cheaper ones.

I think the suggestion that price dictates quality abounds everywhere and in some cases it might be true, but for the most part it is a false formula. Each time I went into the hair salon, I knew the ploys of the stylists-- trying to get you to purchase expensive products that they receive a commission for selling. I also knew the price dictates quality facade and the placebo effect philosophy that tricks many into believing that their problems will be fixed (in this hair context case-I'm not discrediting it in other situations). But because I have background knowledge of these tactics, I can make an informed decision about what hair products I choose to buy.

What I'm saying is: We could save a lot of money, if we didn't take to heart the price dictates quality sham.

Fear Mongering

The Media Equation article was interesting, although at first I thought they were being fear-mongering conspiracy theorists (for the first half of the article). I assumed they were going to conclude that because humans are "unconscious" of our reaction to mediated life as real life, we will eventually not be able to distinguish mediated reality from real reality (whatever real reality is). But it turns out, they weren't bashing anthropomorphism. In fact, that's not what they were even talking about.

The human tendency shown in various studies to equate mediated life with real life is indeed not surprising. I think we do have social relationships with computers: they respond and send messages, just like humans do. How else would we act toward them except through our learned social norms? Of course people know that computers and television don't depict real life. But those videos and pictures make our brain respond the same way as if they were real.

I have to say I disagree with the author's supposition that this is due to evolutionary factors. If our parents had been born using the kind of technology our generation has, they'd be in the same place as we are, and I think that the human brain will never evolve in order to be able to completely distinguish mediated images and reality from real reality (so long as we interact with other people). We will always have strong social norm patterns that dictate our behavior with our use of media.

The thought that social science and the media equation can help technology developers is something I've never thought about. The examples weren't very specific, but I think this assertion has merit. I also thought the examples of how the media equation can be used were sort of vague. Maybe it's just an interesting observation rather than something that's really going to do that much good. It seems technology developers are already aware of the fact that people may act like they do not distinguish media from reality while they are using it, even though they know they aren't the same thing.

As for the other article, I was completely on the same page as the author. Although I may be more paranoid about the negative effects technology may come to have on society (especially through things like privacy issues), I think that the evolution of technology is natural and that the invention of the computer is comparable to the invention of the spear. It's a very rational, practical, non-alarmist view, which I appreciate. Technology does more good than evil, in my opinion. We do need to monitor it, though.

There is of course a definite overlap between the two articles in the confusion on machine-centeredness and its unfriendliness to human use. If human's apply social norms to their media experience, we do have a lot to learn from this so-called flawed human behavior and intellect. And I certainly don't want humans to be completely "undistractable" either.