One legacy of the Covid-19 pandemic is the increased use of robots in our society. Among their advantages, they don't need masks or social distancing and they don't take sick days, vacations or parental leave.
They also don't easily take offense when treated badly or need to be thanked for doing a good job. In fact they don’t require any emotional involvement whatsoever.
As robotized services including Alexa and Siri have become more embedded in our offices and households, a question that occurs to me is what long-term impact are they having on the way we communicate with each other.
It starts, as do all things, with the children. Kids quickly learn to ask Siri or Alexa to do something in a commanding voice, which then becomes anger if the robot cannot comply with their wishes quickly enough.
I wonder how a child growing up in such circumstances will treat his or her employees in the future?
When voice commands first became a thing, I found myself speaking in a respectful voice and often thanking Siri for her help. Siri never replied. The engineers who developed her apparently hadn't bothered to work "you're welcome" into her vocabulary.
Thus, my politeness fell on deaf ears.
And although this type of software is supposed to be intelligent, i.e., it learning from interacting with us, in my experience our robotic friends are in no way learning to be more polite.
As for humans, when we are not rewarded for being polite, we tend to become less so over time. Gradually, for example, I’ve learned to issue simple straight-out commands to my voiced units. There is no point in engaging in social niceties with an entity that doesn’t respond accordingly, is there?
But what I am conditioning myself to become?
When it comes to the people who have designed the relevant software in this case, many of them value direct, logical and blunt sentences. Social skills simply are not at a premium during an intense Agile development cycle.
As our society populates the environment with robots, maybe the ultimate effect will be that nobody will have much of a reason to be nice anymore.
This would, of course, resemble our political culture, where it seems politeness and respect for others became utterly extinct some time ago.
Indeed, being not nice is often a virtue in modern America. And those who cheer on the misogynist, racist, homophobic demagogues at political rallies? They resemble nothing so much as robots.
The news summaries in an age like this might as well be compiled by robots as well, I guess, but in fact I’ve done the ones that follow in the old-fashioned way. So please enjoy them.
(I first published an earlier version of this essay four years ago.)
HEADLINES:
Is Cyprus about to be dragged into a war between Israel and Hezbollah? (Al Jazeera)
Global fossil fuel consumption and energy emissions hit all-time highs in 2023, even as fossil fuels' share of the global energy mix decreased slightly on the year, the industry's Statistical Review of World Energy report said. (Reuters)
‘What if there just is no solution?’ How we are all in denial about the climate crisis (Guardian)
Kim Jong Un takes his relationship with Putin — and maybe his nuclear program — to a new level (NBC)
Millions remain under heat advisories as wildfire death toll grows (Today)
High temperatures will persist in the Midwest, Northeast and Mid-Atlantic (WP)
Trump gets the final word at CNN debate after coin flip (CNN)
In the '70s, Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders faced body-shaming, misogyny and unequal pay, and a new Netflix docuseries released Thursday shows little has changed. HuffPost's Paige Skinner spoke to two former cheerleaders and one woman who tried out for the team twice about their experiences. [HuffPost]
Does science back up the surgeon general's call for a warning label on social media? (NPR)
A new Fox poll shows Biden up. Their primetime hosts didn’t mention it. (WP)
Firestorm erupts over requiring women to sign up for military draft (The Hill)
Making art is a uniquely human act, and one that provides a wellspring of health benefits (The Conversation)
Washington Post CEO Plans a Mysterious ‘Third Newsroom.’ His Past Offers a Clue. (WSJ)
Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post journalists call for leadership change amid publisher scrutiny (CNN)
Incoming Washington Post editor decides not to take job amid ethics concerns (NBC)
Neo-Nazis Are All-In On AI (Wired)
AI is replacing human tasks faster than you think (CNN)
Why artists are becoming less scared of AI (Technology Review)
Elmer’s Unveils New Super Sticky Glue Park (The Onion)
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