The Human Touch

Technology seems to promise so much. To improve our lives we have only to implement the latest soft- and hard-ware products.

Who doesn’t believe in progress and in embracing the future?

The abstract world of the Internet promises happiness if we leave paper and vinyl behind and jump over into the screen. A straight line runs from analog to digital, they say, “they” being the same people that use the term “virtual reality”—an oxymoron if ever there was one.

The latest fad on that line of progress appears to be “ChatGPT.” The GPT in the name stands for generative pre-trained transformer. In essence, it is an artificial intelligence program that in a conversational way, hence “chat,” is able to answer questions big and small. Artificial intelligence is another oxymoron.

It will write essays and poems for school, compose music, create artsy paintings, and put your job application together. Recently one ChatGPT passed an MBA exam. (Disclaimer: I typed this article personally, with only the muses mentioned below to assist me.)

Students love it but professors don’t. Singer-songwriter Nick Cave had it create some lyrics for him; he was not impressed. Would-be Picassos are multiplying and HRmanagers had better beware; your ideal candidate might exist only on paper.

A blissful technology then for mankind? Feed this to the robots, especially to those looking and acting like human beings, which we call androids; their IQ just increased a thousandfold. Did we reach the end of the line then—humans no longer required?

Or should mankind fear this development? Those artifacts have a dark shadow that many sciencefiction writers have identified over the years. Philip K. Dick has human bounty-hunters kill rebellious androids in his 1968 novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

That book formed the basis for the 1982 Ridley Scott cult-movie Bladerunner. In the famous last scene, the hunted-down android dies after many brutal fights but not without imparting the “human” wisdom he found in his 4 years on Earth: “I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe (…). All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.”

The android was aware that all the moments he had experienced were going to be lost for all time. By expressing that, the android not only demonstrated he was aware of his existence, he also showed the very human desire not to be forgotten, not to have lived in vain. The android displayed a human touch.

About 80 years ago, another famous science-fiction writer, Isaac Asimov, was already musing on the relationship between humans and androids. He devised the Three Laws of Robotics to which all robots in his stories must adhere so they would not turn against their human creators:

1. a robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm;

2. a robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law; and

3. a robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.

Those writers taught us two things:

•

Those technological advances come with limitations, and • ethical guidelines need to accompany the new products. Whether for androids threatening to terminate humans or for students cheating on their assignments with ChatGPT, new technology should come with a warning label.

In any case, that supposed straight line from analog to digital does not appear to be that smooth a ride. We should not yet defer paper, vinyl, and humans to the dustbin of history.

Paper, an ancient technology, actually shows us the limitations of its digital version. Apart from the sense of touch it conveys and the vital link with the past it preserves, it can be the more productive technology of the two.

A paper agenda is not subject to power or Internet-connectivity issues or to viruses. Both a paper calendar and a paper map provide dimensions that scrolling through their electronic versions, especially on a cellphone, cannot. And where are my pen and paper so I can doodle while on hold “forever” with the corporate calling centres of the world?

In many ways, the virtual world has muzzled our senses. Having your music collection available at the click of your mouse is not the same as having your records available at the tip of your finger. Are the touch and feel not more rewarding?

Maybe the digital world of clicks and taps has reduced human interaction excessively. Face-to-face interactions have been devalued; tech companies in particular have come to realize that. They now configure their workspaces to promote time-away from the screen and to encourage “real” conversations between co-workers.

We humans are trying too much to iron out our imperfections with new technologies. And we thereby forget that our imperfections prompt our creativity in the first place.

Writing with a fountain pen in a leather-bound paper notebook or reading the Sunday newspaper, paper edition, morning coffee in hand, is much more than mere nostalgia. When we do that, we use our five senses, we create dimensions in and around us; we find our human equilibrium. In short we experience something real and authentic.

Analog and digital do not contradict each other; they complement each other and we need them both.

What we should do, then, is put those new IT advances in their proper context.

• Does the new gadget really improve your life?

• Does it really increase your productivity?

• What are you giving up by implementing yet another application?

And what we certainly should not do is despise and discard the old technologies. That analog product par excellence—the human being—is not yet ready to be replaced by an android.

My Muses

• The Human Touch, a song by Bruce Springsteen

• The Revenge of Analog, a book by David Sax

• The Foundation and the Robot series by Isaac Asimov

• A cup of coffee from freshly ground Arabica beans from Colombia ▲

Notary Public Filip de Sagher is the Manager of Complaints at The Society of Notaries Public of British Columbia.