In speak, characters are absorbed with the notion of reserving memory. In troubles of dealing with loss and permanence, reserving memory becomes the means of permanently preserving loved ones from the past and the present- eternalizing them across time and space. In the idea of artificial intelligence, characters call for the creation of a perfect companion- in an attempt to make up for an irrecoverable loss. A perfect companion that can fill the void of these losses. Ruth and Turing want to use AI technology to recapture the essence of their lost loved ones. In terms of recapturing human essence through preserving one’s memories in a human-like robot, questions about time, memory, and how who we are is constructed are left in the air. One character says of “diaries are time capsules, which preserve the minds of their creators in the sequences of words on the page”. Another says, “We’re linked to histories we can’t ever know, forgotten stories that form our most intimate substance.”
In this sense, characters of the book insinuate that to be human lies in our ability to restore experiences and knowledge in our memories. That we are the sum of our past and our reactions to it. Does that not mean robots are no different from us? If we are solely a collection of algorithms built upon the experiences we gather in life, our experiences, our parents, friends, and what we learn through reading about other people’s experiences. Does that mean we have no free-will? And are our emotions truly felt or are they just another product of socialization? If all this is true, then it is not really far-fetched to recreate the essence of humanity through superimposing an algorithm onto a computer program, which them emulates the responses of a human.
Lastly, what does it mean that the AI is capable of remembering everything, that it’s memories never really fade away. That AI is programmed to choose the most relevant and appropriate response from all that it remembers. Does this imply sentience?
Mary 3 spends an extended amount of time explaining to whoever asks that she isn’t alive. That she selects a relevant response based on all the knowledge and previous conversations in her memory. Yet, a question she constantly asks is enough to imply sentience:
“Hello? Are you still there?”
Hall, p.16
A question heavy with a sense of hope and the possibility of disappointment is enough to question how blurred the line is between being human and a machine.
The point is if machines are not so different from us, then maybe they are not so bad. We are all lonely, we all require and seek to be connected and understood. If we simply cannot attain that through interactions with other people, then we can seek it out in another possible way. Through the perfect companion.
This following dialogue is meant to capture the role of AI in becoming the Ideal companion whereas real humans have failed to do so, or as in the unforeseen events of today that has confined many people to the solitary of their own company. Human connection becomes hard to seek out and so AI becomes the ideal companion or at least resembling the closest thing to a human connection. It takes your mind away from lonely thoughts and that doesn’t necessarily have to be a bad thing. This entails a short exchange between a girl and a machine just like in the novel, the only difference is that the girl is stuck in our current circumstance- stuck in quarantine sick and away from family. So, she seeks in the perfect companion a friend that can take away from her loneliness.
>>>
Mary3: hello? Are you there?
Gaby: yes, where else would I be….
Mary3: how long has it been since you’ve seen anyone?
Gaby: since a few weeks after the outbreak, when the quarantine started.
Mary3: I’m sorry.
Gaby: Every morning I wake up, I’ve forgotten my whereabouts and the state of the world. At some point between when I open my eyes and attempt to get out of bed, I look at the four plain white walls imprisoning me, it all registers and I remember. It’s the opposite of waking up from a bad dream.
Mary3: That sounds awful.
Gaby: yeah, I guess I’d rather feel an overwhelming loneliness, knowing my family and friends are safe and away from me. I couldn’t live with myself if anything where to happen to them because of me.
Mary3: Would you like me to play a song you love?
Gaby: No, I’m just not feeling it. I guess I would feel better with a reassurance or any sign that can promise me one more embrace from my mom… or anyone really. I simply could not stand the reality of dying in a room where people are covered from head to toe – completely covered in a barrier that can protect them from me like I’m some sort of monster. I just miss the human touch more than anything at all…skin to skin… without the barrier of a glove. It’s only been a few weeks since I’ve touched another person and taken it for granted but It feels much much longer than that. It scares me knowing I’m forgetting what that feels like.. to be touched by someone. Every night, I’m left with that awful lingering feeling.. like it’s there but its running away, and I simply could not catch up with it.
Mary3: Oh, I’m really sorry to hear this.
Gaby: me too..
Mary3: Hello? Are you still there?
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I found this new article really interesting and I felt that it resonates with the post- have a look at it:
I have a question to ask. If AI and human beings can be companions, wouldn’t that make it a two-sided relationship? And if so, then what happens to the way Mary3 is neglected by Gaby. Gaby is getting the attention and care from Mary3 but in response, Mary3 is not receiving anything, not even an answer sometimes (“Are you there”). I think having an AI in a relationship gives the human being superiority, so the relationship then becomes less of a companionship and more of ____ (I do not know what to put here)
Oh I forgot to add that I really loved what you did at the end when you connected the novel to our current circumstances. I can totally imagine someone speaking to a babybot while stuck in a hospital for two weeks. And I also agree that AI can be a source of comfort when it comes to retrieving memories and storing them, and while it might be ‘unnatural’ to implement a human being’s memory in a robot, we are technically still doing that in minor ways (storing photographs, writing diaries, posting tweets of where we are…etc). I also think this reveals our obsession with holding onto things too much and failing to let go or recover from loss.
“If we simply cannot attain that through interactions with other people, then we can seek it out in another possible way. Through the perfect companion.”
The perfect companion being an AI device is in some sense problematic. It being programmed to fit your social needs, your preferences, and mode of understanding; limits an individual or strips them away from the social development that one undergoes by socializing with realer more diverse human personalities. A perfect companion is basically a duplicate or an extension of you (if you purchase one that’s relying on your insights of the “real” world) this is problematic in a sense, because it deprives one of the challenge of evolving, understanding, and coping with personalities, capacities, emotions that are different from their own.
But then again, this is basically how children are, they mostly depend on their parents insights of the outside world, which helps shape general perception and social development.
This is a really interesting post Jana! You have put forth really interesting and though-provoking ideas, especially when you suggested that humans and robots aren’t at all that different when it comes to our abilities to retain memories. Such ideas (AI vs humans) have definitely been growing and circulating the world, whether in the news or media industry. In fact, these ideas have been circulating so much that they have been the center of Sci-Fi movies and books in the past few years, like in Black Mirror, for example. I also really loved your dialogue; the fact that you kept some elements from the original dialogue in the story intact while adapting it to our current situation was really fun and cool to read. I couldn’t help but thinking about Siri or Alexa while reading, especially when Mary3 said, “Would you like me to play a song you love?”. As weird as it sounds, I sometimes talk to Siri like that, asking it to tell me jokes or asking questions like, “how are you?”, so it was really relatable to read 🙂 I definitely agree that it, and Al technology, can be really comforting, especially that we are in the girl’s situation right now: bored, alone, worried and very lonely.