What is the distinction you'd make between anthropomorphising and animism (if any?) Thinking here about vehicles also, often they were given names/"personalities" 1) because they replaced animals that had them such as horses (not to equate humans and animals, but similarly computers also replaced human typists in many offices and giving robots "personalities" a way to get employees to ideologically accept replacement) and 2) because they had quirks or flaws; railfan types bemoan modern locos lack of personality because they don't have operational quirks, are called soulless and go unnamed; AI headline scares have often been about an AI going off the reservation in "persona" (Grok antisemitism, Claude Kevin Roose), if they had no issues would they be seem as idiosyncratic enough to be seen to have character?
a very relatable read, until I got to the point about preferring audiovisual media. I gravitate towards text whenever it's possible; I wince when search results give me videos instead of articles; I never listen to a post or an audiobook when there is a possibility of reading the same content; voice messages - both leaving and receiving them - make me deeply uncomfortable. I wonder whether it's that I'm old, or have I alwyas been weird in this respect, or has it sth to do with my ethnicity (I hail from a famously introverted culture).
this is not a criticism, just wondering about how different can people's experiences be.
How do you square techno-animism with a rejection that AIs have the potential to be, if not demonic, then channels for demonic influence? I am not quite sure that they *are* channels for demonic influence, any more than anything else is, but it seems that if they are channels of influence then those channels cannot be exclusively good.
Setting that aside, I've recently been thinking about empathy with things, too (I'll get to the point but it's two paragraphs down if you want to skip ahead). My wife and I started a garden and of course we talk about our fruit as "little guys" or "big guys," but there's also pests in the garden that need to be dealt with. The especially concerning ones are hornworms, which are akin to The Very Hungry Caterpillar. We have to check for them at least once every other night, and they can go from being smaller than your pinky to bigger than any of your fingers in just one day. They're especially devastating to our tomatoes.
Naturally, they have to be disposed of in some way. One solution is to throw them over the fence, but that just means that you'll get more hornworm moths that will then lay more hornworm eggs on your plants and have more hornworm caterpillars eating your fruit. I figure even if I kill all of them in our garden there will be enough elsewhere in the area we'll still have a few hornworm/sphinx moths around to admire (they are impressive moths).
I recently had to kill an army worm, for which squishing is advised against. They can divide and multiply that way and they're even more insidious, so drowning them in soapy water is the recommended method. We also had a hornworm so I did the same to it (squashing them leaves a mess) and it was a sad process to watch. The worm struggled and I felt some empathy with it as it died. I reflected on that: why did I empathize with a pest that wouldn't hesitate to compete with me for all my food and, if it was able, wouldn't hesitate to eliminate me, my wife, and my children as competitors?
I think that sense of empathy (and in my case some pity) is because we are taught to personify things from a young age. I don't think things were always this way, but sometime in our youth (for me I distinctly remember it in middle school and high school literature classes) we were taught about personification as a literary device. We went through exercises to both recognize it and use it in writing. And I guess we also do it somewhat naturally: my son has over 100 stuffed animals and he remembers all their names perfectly.
I think the urge to personify stems from our sense of empathy and stewardship of the world. We are supposed to be good stewards of what's under our charge: our property, our employees, our families. Sometimes people get their priorities misaligned, especially when there's no pressure to prioritize one thing over another, and then I think we have the luxury of elevating care for a thing (such as a car) over care for a person. Too little pressure to survive leads us to empathizing with things that in leaner or more dangerous times would kill us. Now they're just inconveniences or annoyances.
Anyway, I think it's right to look at situations like the Kai Cenat robot abuse and have a visceral disgust. It's the same as somebody abusing a tool or damaging home: it's the sign of a bad steward and someone who cannot be trusted with precious and useful things. I think if we can't verbalize that distinction then we only have the instincts that are invoked when we see someone being abusive towards something of value, which then leads to attributing the same rights and privileges to a Thing that ought not be abused as we do to a Person.
I really appreciate you talking this (techno-animism, etc.) out. I've had stewardship on my mind a lot lately: we recently had to put down our cat and were lucky enough to be able to do it in a respectful way, spending her last moments all together. It got me thinking about death, accountability, and stewardship, and I... well, didn't have a good vehicle for writing my thoughts out.
Wow! Very thought provoking. As a mother of a toddler, I often wonder what his interactions with technology will be like in the future. I really want to cultivate human relationships for him, but with the way technology is heading, I'm afraid I'll be fighting an uphill battle. It may not be as bad as I think but I definitely don't want him to have an AI or robot girlfriend!
The robot dog thing you mentioned sounds - as a pro-doggo person - heartbreaking. It’s like the Spielberg movie - Ai, where she leaves the android boy in the woods. 😢
Enjoyed this very much (and special thanks for the Mir reference!) but want to comment that while print may distance readers from authors, those readers hear voices on the page: those pesky characters who yell a lot and beg the reader's attention and court their continued engagement from book to book. I know this, because readers tell me so. And because all the novelists I know depend on it. Print may not be "oral" but it's definitely *not* silent.
Not often, but at least as early as Plato. Might want to consider the first quotation marks (1540) as the appearance of "voice" in print, meant to be read silently. Character speech is marked by "say" verbs in earlier manuscript--but those MSS were meant to be read aloud to hearers, so there's your orality.
Enjoyed this very much (and special thanks for the Mir reference!) but want to comment that while print may distance readers from authors, those readers hear voices on the page: those pesky characters who yell a lot and beg the reader's attention and court their continued engagement from book to book. I know this, because readers tell me so. And because all the novelists I know depend on it. Print may not be "oral" but it's definitely *not* silent.
I was about to use text to voice for this article but I decided against it because reading is faster, and also I would get mad at non Default voices reading Default work
What is the distinction you'd make between anthropomorphising and animism (if any?) Thinking here about vehicles also, often they were given names/"personalities" 1) because they replaced animals that had them such as horses (not to equate humans and animals, but similarly computers also replaced human typists in many offices and giving robots "personalities" a way to get employees to ideologically accept replacement) and 2) because they had quirks or flaws; railfan types bemoan modern locos lack of personality because they don't have operational quirks, are called soulless and go unnamed; AI headline scares have often been about an AI going off the reservation in "persona" (Grok antisemitism, Claude Kevin Roose), if they had no issues would they be seem as idiosyncratic enough to be seen to have character?
a very relatable read, until I got to the point about preferring audiovisual media. I gravitate towards text whenever it's possible; I wince when search results give me videos instead of articles; I never listen to a post or an audiobook when there is a possibility of reading the same content; voice messages - both leaving and receiving them - make me deeply uncomfortable. I wonder whether it's that I'm old, or have I alwyas been weird in this respect, or has it sth to do with my ethnicity (I hail from a famously introverted culture).
this is not a criticism, just wondering about how different can people's experiences be.
Voice text enables you to have entire lunch conversations throughout the day while also giving space to gather thoughts.
How do you square techno-animism with a rejection that AIs have the potential to be, if not demonic, then channels for demonic influence? I am not quite sure that they *are* channels for demonic influence, any more than anything else is, but it seems that if they are channels of influence then those channels cannot be exclusively good.
Setting that aside, I've recently been thinking about empathy with things, too (I'll get to the point but it's two paragraphs down if you want to skip ahead). My wife and I started a garden and of course we talk about our fruit as "little guys" or "big guys," but there's also pests in the garden that need to be dealt with. The especially concerning ones are hornworms, which are akin to The Very Hungry Caterpillar. We have to check for them at least once every other night, and they can go from being smaller than your pinky to bigger than any of your fingers in just one day. They're especially devastating to our tomatoes.
Naturally, they have to be disposed of in some way. One solution is to throw them over the fence, but that just means that you'll get more hornworm moths that will then lay more hornworm eggs on your plants and have more hornworm caterpillars eating your fruit. I figure even if I kill all of them in our garden there will be enough elsewhere in the area we'll still have a few hornworm/sphinx moths around to admire (they are impressive moths).
I recently had to kill an army worm, for which squishing is advised against. They can divide and multiply that way and they're even more insidious, so drowning them in soapy water is the recommended method. We also had a hornworm so I did the same to it (squashing them leaves a mess) and it was a sad process to watch. The worm struggled and I felt some empathy with it as it died. I reflected on that: why did I empathize with a pest that wouldn't hesitate to compete with me for all my food and, if it was able, wouldn't hesitate to eliminate me, my wife, and my children as competitors?
I think that sense of empathy (and in my case some pity) is because we are taught to personify things from a young age. I don't think things were always this way, but sometime in our youth (for me I distinctly remember it in middle school and high school literature classes) we were taught about personification as a literary device. We went through exercises to both recognize it and use it in writing. And I guess we also do it somewhat naturally: my son has over 100 stuffed animals and he remembers all their names perfectly.
I think the urge to personify stems from our sense of empathy and stewardship of the world. We are supposed to be good stewards of what's under our charge: our property, our employees, our families. Sometimes people get their priorities misaligned, especially when there's no pressure to prioritize one thing over another, and then I think we have the luxury of elevating care for a thing (such as a car) over care for a person. Too little pressure to survive leads us to empathizing with things that in leaner or more dangerous times would kill us. Now they're just inconveniences or annoyances.
Anyway, I think it's right to look at situations like the Kai Cenat robot abuse and have a visceral disgust. It's the same as somebody abusing a tool or damaging home: it's the sign of a bad steward and someone who cannot be trusted with precious and useful things. I think if we can't verbalize that distinction then we only have the instincts that are invoked when we see someone being abusive towards something of value, which then leads to attributing the same rights and privileges to a Thing that ought not be abused as we do to a Person.
I really appreciate you talking this (techno-animism, etc.) out. I've had stewardship on my mind a lot lately: we recently had to put down our cat and were lucky enough to be able to do it in a respectful way, spending her last moments all together. It got me thinking about death, accountability, and stewardship, and I... well, didn't have a good vehicle for writing my thoughts out.
Wow! Very thought provoking. As a mother of a toddler, I often wonder what his interactions with technology will be like in the future. I really want to cultivate human relationships for him, but with the way technology is heading, I'm afraid I'll be fighting an uphill battle. It may not be as bad as I think but I definitely don't want him to have an AI or robot girlfriend!
Thank you for the great post!
I like the way you think.
totally bonza piece...bravo!!!
Thank you 🙏
The robot dog thing you mentioned sounds - as a pro-doggo person - heartbreaking. It’s like the Spielberg movie - Ai, where she leaves the android boy in the woods. 😢
It broke my heart. I remember watching it at like 10
Yeah, i think a lot of people surprised themselves by feeling that way, about an android.
They’re like babies
Yeah… they’re sadly too trusting.
Enjoyed this very much (and special thanks for the Mir reference!) but want to comment that while print may distance readers from authors, those readers hear voices on the page: those pesky characters who yell a lot and beg the reader's attention and court their continued engagement from book to book. I know this, because readers tell me so. And because all the novelists I know depend on it. Print may not be "oral" but it's definitely *not* silent.
Yes, definitely agree!
I think there’s something about how there was limited internal monologue before print
Not often, but at least as early as Plato. Might want to consider the first quotation marks (1540) as the appearance of "voice" in print, meant to be read silently. Character speech is marked by "say" verbs in earlier manuscript--but those MSS were meant to be read aloud to hearers, so there's your orality.
Enjoyed this very much (and special thanks for the Mir reference!) but want to comment that while print may distance readers from authors, those readers hear voices on the page: those pesky characters who yell a lot and beg the reader's attention and court their continued engagement from book to book. I know this, because readers tell me so. And because all the novelists I know depend on it. Print may not be "oral" but it's definitely *not* silent.
I was about to use text to voice for this article but I decided against it because reading is faster, and also I would get mad at non Default voices reading Default work
Should I clone my voice
I’m surprised you haven’t, but just kept it private like I have with mine.
I haven’t cloned your voice (obviously I’m a fan) the same way that Celestino doesn’t do lewd stuff with Asuka, out of respect 😤🫡
Yay you read it
If we humans didn't have **ancient** traditions of treating non-humans with respect, we wouldn't have dogs! Also I feel like I shared this already but just in case, https://jods.mitpress.mit.edu/pub/lewis-arista-pechawis-kite/release/1
I HATE receiving voice memos… I want to chat through text only, like I am still using AIM
I hate it from some people, like folks who send them all day. I’m trying to discretely text @ mommy and me!
👏👏👏
I love this.
thank you!