9/29/17
Sherry Turkle
Analytical paper #1
As we move into a dangerous new age where intelligent machines exist alongside humans
what does this mean for us and where could it lead? From the moment we are born to the time
we die, we are surrounded by machines. Technology is always advancing in strides and leaps and
now we are running towards the finish line, artificial intelligence. Now there are a number of
different viewpoints on humanities latest goal. One of the most vocal of them is from the
renowned author, Sherry Turkle. In Turkle's latest book Alone Together: Why We Expect More
from Technology and Less from Each Other, she has taken up the crusade to show what
technology is doing to us. Turkles ideas of …show more content…
While we may not become batteries for machines, we may become obsolete
to them over time.
Considering the dangers there are some benefits of intelligent machines. They would be
precise and leave no room for incorrect data, aid doctors in diagnosis and surgery, and they
would require no sleep or food thus making them perfect for dangerous tasks humans do. Though
there are positives the negative aspects loom over, casting a shadow that nearly engulfs the
benefits. If they were to ever be mass produced then there would have been the astronomical
cost to reproduce them and then to fix them as well. We are born naked into this world, but how
will we die? At the moment we insert machines like cochlear implants and pacemakers into our
bodies these are benign, but where is the line? Companies are beginning to use implants as
tracking devices, as we stretch to the limits of our imagination anything is possible. Will we
return to the earth with our bodies a mixture of metal and flesh, as borg?
Overall, the rise of intelligent machines is a terrifying prospect. To some, the risks of what
may be, vastly outweigh the benefits. We cannot know the future, but the debate rages on