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Authenticity in the age of digital companions
Abstract
The first generation of children to grow up with electronic toys and games saw computers as our “nearest neighbors.” They spoke of computers as rational machines and of people as emotional machines, a fragile formulation destined to be challenged. By the mid-1990s, computational creatures, including robots, were presenting themselves as “relational artifacts,” beings with feelings and needs. One consequence of this development is a crisis in authenticity in many quarters. In an increasing number of situations, people behave as though they no longer place value on living things and authentic emotion. This paper examines watershed moments in the history of human–machine interaction, focusing on the pertinence of relational artifacts to our collective perception of aliveness, life’s purposes, and the implications of relational artifacts for relationships. For now, the exploration of human–robot encounters leads us to questions about the morality of creating believable digital companions that are evocative but not authentic.
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Cites
Picard, R. W. (1997) · MIT Press · doi:10.7551/mitpress/1140.001.0001 · Cited by 7,382
Searle, J. R. (1980) · Behavioral and Brain Sciences · doi:10.1017/s0140525x00005756 · Cited by 6,954
Cited by
Zywica, J., & Danowski, J. (2008) · Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication · doi:10.1111/j.1083-6101.2008.01429.x · Cited by 625
Too real for comfort? Uncanny responses to computer generated faces
MacDorman, K. F., Green, R. D., Ho, C.-C., & Koch, C. T. (2009) · Computers in Human Behavior · doi:10.1016/j.chb.2008.12.026 · Cited by 533
Responsible AI—two frameworks for ethical design practice
Peters, D., Vold, K., Robinson, D., & Calvo, R. A. (2020) · IEEE Transactions on Technology and Society · doi:10.1109/tts.2020.2974991 · Cited by 293
Alabed, A., Javornik, A., & Gregory-Smith, D. (2022) · Technological Forecasting and Social Change · doi:10.1016/j.techfore.2022.121786 · Cited by 233
Ethical challenges of telemedicine and telehealth
KAPLAN, B., & LITEWKA, S. (2008) · Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics · doi:10.1017/s0963180108080535 · Cited by 167
Metadata
- Authors
- Turkle, S.
- Venue
- Interaction Studies. Social Behaviour and Communication in Biological and Artificial Systems
- Publisher
- John Benjamins Publishing Company
- Published
- 2007-10-16
- Volume
- 8
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 501-517
- ISSN
- 1572-0373 (ISSN-L)
- 1572-0381
- OpenAlex
- W1968697026
- Cited by
- 265
- References
- 2
- FWCI
- 7.40
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
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Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
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