"Our Wire Mothers" - It's important for us to be careful that our technology does not supplant the human need for socialization.
"Our Wire Mothers" - It's important for us to be careful that our technology does not supplant the human need for socialization.
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Oh, he nailed it. Surrogate connection, that's what we're getting. And since it's clearly distinct from the real thing in several ways, it's only logical that it would be a poor substitute for irl connections. Where you can actually hug someone.
I know this isn't a novel idea, but the wire-mother analogy is a particularly effective way to communicate it, and this is the first I'm seeing it.
edit: To further add, we should probably remember that not everyone gets the same opportunities for healthy, irl connections, due to circumstances outside their control. Particularly when you're still a minor.
In these cases where the choice is between surrogate connections (say, an AI companion) and none at all (near-total social ostracisation) then the less-than-ideal becomes a little preferable to the shittiest of possibilities.
Absolutely. The essay does actually address that towards the end:
There’s no shame in turning to the internet for supplementing socialization when doing it “better” isn’t feasible. It’s easy to imagine situations where someone might not have access to a community that keeps them sane. A gay teenager stuck in rural Alabama. A woman born into a controlled religious society. A New York sports fan in Boston. Some days in life, the best we can hope for is making it until tomorrow in one piece.
Having been the gay teenager in a rural southern town, I can absolutely affirm that being able to connect with other gay guys online was massively helpful to me.
At the same time, now that I'm in a much better place, I can also affirm how much worse it is than actual real-life connection with a real community, and I do think that that's something that's quite a lot harder to access nowadays since so much social activity has shifted online.
This is true. Even amongst humans, there's a concept called "surrogate partners", who work with sex therapists who help patients deal with barriers in intimate relationships.
many of our relationships are not with people anymore, but with technology