Am I the only person freaked out about the possibility of an AI future?

Lately I’ve seen a lot of news about robots. Robot prototypes taking orders in restaurants, robots as potential care givers, and even FRIENDS.

Excuse me? Are we really discussing the possibility that robots might be the next “friend” some of us have?? I hope I never live to see people walking down the street, or sitting at a restaurant eating their meal, with a robot. That’s all a little too Ex Machina for me. If we, the human race get to the point where we live in our phones, in our Netflix insular solo bubbles more than we already do, it would be no surprise that we would no longer have the social skills to go out in the world and make actual real life friends. But do we want that??? I mean shouldn’t this cause us all to be alarmed at the possibility that this might be the future for some people who are already dangerously close to never leaving their homes. When I think about the direction our world is headed, I can’t lie, it does freak me out.

Think about it: many people work from home now, thanks to being able to skype in on board meetings, the internet allows us to “talk” and send our work projects to anybody and everybody when they’re due. Uber Eats, and so many other food delivery companies make it so that you don’t even need to leave your home to feed yourself. You can get just about everything delivered to your front door. You can even have your sex delivered to you, that is if you even care to actually engage in person to person intercourse. Some people are just as happy to masturbate to porn, or people they’re never ever going to meet on social media, rather than putting themselves out there in a real, messy, relationship.

As I’m typing this out, I have to be honest, the future of human beings freaks me out. Are we going to be okay? How insular we will become? How much personal human connection do any of us really need anymore? One hour a day? Two? Five??? What is the magic number of face to face hours that we must have in a day to remain “normal??” The other night we, the five of us, were hanging out after having a meal together, we’ve had this rule since cellphones became a thing, they’re not allowed at the table. We’ve also never had a TV anywhere near the main living space. One TV in the TV room and that’s it. So as far as our family interaction during meal times goes, it is on point. But, what I noticed while blogging after dinner, was that every single one of us was head down in either a phone, or a laptop. The conversation well had run dry and we were all back in our own private communication world, with God knows who.

I’m not going to lie, it bothered me, and I tend to go right to the “it’s the end of the world” in all matters so of course it made me question; “what have I done wrong that family has nothing to say to each other???” When I brought it up to Yannick he responded with: “Back in the day when television first came on the scene this was the exact same thing that happened. Families would sit around watching TV rather than sit around catching up on life. For the longest time it was television, and now it’s hand held devices.”

I get what he’s saying, and I don’t disagree with it, completely, but I do have to say that I still wish that we, as a family, and the world in general would learn to step away from technology, and spend more time interacting with friends, loved and ones and being outside in nature. But the way it looks like it might be headed with not only our addiction to our current technologies, but combine that with the advancements in AI technology, is that sadly I think we might be heading into a new, colder, lonelier future.

I for one hope this isn’t the case. I pray that the future of our society reverts back to more human interaction, and not robotic, hopefully I’m not alone in this wish. I suppose only time will tell.