The perfect partner
@anomadsoul has kept asking me for something but it is just not my thing and no matter how many times he says it 'won't hurt', I keep refusing. He has asked me to sing. But, what if I did sing and you discovered that I had the voice of an angel? Would you want me to continue?
Let's say that I kept singing and went on @dlive and @dtube and sang with such a beautiful voice that the upvotes came pouring in and I became not only Steemit famous, I conquered the world. Millions of dollars, record deals and the high life. Would you be happy for me?
What would happen if one day while I was singing on stage, a sudden metallic screeching sound emitted from my mouth and I could no longer speak? How would you feel if the most celebrated voice, a voice you love to hear, was an augmentation, no different to a set of fake boobs, or botox lips. What happens when anyone can sing like Adele?
Would you feel that the skill of singing has lost value?
When it comes to something like a classic work of art, we highly value the original but if one was to hang a poster of the Mona Lisa on the wall, it would be seen as quite tacky. What is the difference, both are the same image aren't they?
For most of us, no they are not the same. Original, rare, limited has value. That is why De Beers diamonds doesn't release all of their stock onto the market at once as if they did, diamonds would be a dime a dozen and hold no value. Perhaps one day the wedding ring will be replaced by the wedding encrypted key.
But what happens in that future where human skills can be bought and sold in the same way as an original painting. What happens if we could have augmentations that make us perform much better than we could ever hope to as just a human? Would you want to be able to run at twice the speed, calculate complex maths in your head, see miles into the distance? Doesn't sound too bad does it?
What if instead of just getting a new set of breasts and a haircut, the augmentation was much more subtle, what if it was personality? How would you feel if after many dates with a person who just 'gets you, you know?' you discover that it was a software package that augmented the speech patterns, the table manners, the sharp sense of humour and the listening ear served with perfect responses? How would you feel if all of that came in a bundle downloaded for a few hundred dollars? Would you still feel as attracted?
It is actually a little bit of a strange paradox that we have as humans. When it comes to skills, we value the skills that were earned but, when it comes to behaviour, we devalue learned behaviours as we think that is not the real personality. Why should it matter as long as they are acting in a way that you like?
Think about it here. Ever responded to a comment only to discover it was a bot? How did you feel? A little silly, a bit ripped off, cheated? Now, push that out to everyone and everything you value about them in the future. Happy?
As humans we are much more pattern based than we like to admit and much more manipulable too. None of us tend to think that we would fall for such obvious personality tricks yet time and time again, con artists take millions from people who think they have found true love.
What is true love in a world where actions are all program based, what would we really be falling in love with? A robot? Would we be content in a world where contentment is based on the programmed, machine like behaviours of our idealised beliefs?
In fact, why even bother with any of that, why not just get an augmentation that makes us feel happy, no matter what circumstances we are experiencing. Oppressed, beaten, raped, victimised? No worries, there is an app for that.
Is that the coming Utopia, one where we are able to fundamentally improve our circumstance but, we are going to have to merge with machines and software to change our behaviours and become our best? Would it be so bad?
Perhaps it is just the next step in our evolution as humans and sentient tool makers. What is really fundamentally different from creating a hammer to build a house or a plane to fly around the world and, a psychological program to enhance our thinking? They cochlear implants, laser eye surgery and butt implants. What is different?
It actually already happens on dates as far as I can see. People seem unable to hold a decent conversation without turning to the digital wingman for support, their phone. It is no wonder people need dating apps like tinder these days as their social skills are atrocious. Girls, if you are on a date with a guy and he needs his phone to seem interesting, walk away (unless he is rich of course).
We are entering into some strange territory as we are now advanced enough to change who we are, how we are and what we think with minimal cost and effort. These augmentations are going to become ubiquitous and much more advanced.
I just wonder what happens when we remove the chance encounters, the slips of words, the accidental bumps into someone on the subway. What happens when experience is so engineered that we never have the possibility to lock eyes with someone and just feel, Wow!
Taraz
[ a Steemit original ]
No, you aren't going to hear me sing until you hear the screeching of it in hell for eternity (or perhaps at the supermarket when I sing with my daughter).
I'd pay money to see you sing and post it to the blockchain. I mean real money too, the big bucks.
You can sing to her at night when she goes to bed soon. Practice 'Summertime'.
I'm currently working on some Spice Girls numbers. Classics.
I have a relatable phrase: Whenever I have a crush on someone I haven´t met, I prefer not to meet them, because the expectations and the ideas I´ve made about them before meeting them, will render their true self below expectations, there is no way you´ll end up disappointed.
You are gonna regret not singing and missing that collaborative Billboard award :P
the reality can never meet the expectations of hope it seems.
You will enjoy that Billboard award because I didn't sing. I am thinking about the team. ;)
We mostly have achieved that level already. It's found in vertical cities, in skyscrapers where thousands and thousands of people live and most even don't know or have ever had a proper chat with their neighbor.
It's a sad state and it's going to get only worse. Until the day we see a new rise in public locals, pubs where mobile phones are not welcome. If in some years those social meeting places still exist because work has continued to bite into ever larger chunks of our days.
Yes, it is almost there isn't it ;) We are already brainwashed, programmed controlled. People want to be free while they sit and do exactly what they have been taught to do.
When mobile phones became popular around the Millenium turn I was lucky to be in the Netherlands, in Utrecht particularly. There were two higher level bistros who had a no mobile phone policy, with laminated signs against the wall. Each time a phone was heard ringing the whole waiting staff would jump up and try to locate the phone, it was pretty fun to see. For most waiters it was their guilty pleasure of the day.
While it would most definitely cause a ruckus on social media - what doesn't nowadays - just like there's always more new coffee shops opening without WiFi, I predict that we will ever more find such locals again. Because they want people to have a nice and social time, not a time dictated by a gadget. It may even be socially owned guesthouses (pubs with shared ownership by a large base of their patrons).
If I remember Utrecht had the first UBI test too.
I think it will get to a point where at least groups of friends will outlaw phones. I don't like meeting some friends anymore as they are always on a phone. Soon it might be like smoking. Once it was 'connecting people' but now the smokers are ostracised.
I feel too old for any of that stuff. But if I were younger and on the market, it would, indeed, feel weird as a thought experiment. But I believe it is only a matter of time before things will come to that.
I would call that scenario practical buddhism. Such a future where your whole personality is a mere collage of interchangeable parts for which there is a vibrant market should really drive home the reality that the self is an illusion, that is, the self is ephemeral as everything else in this world. That we change considerably over long periods of time is a fact established by psychological studies measuring personality traits. The only constant is the illusion that we are the same. Narratives about the self are constantly revised to maintain the illusion of constancy.
I agree with you there. I think the people who believe in their ego are the unobservant and the arrogant.
Nothing is free, and there is always a price to pay, even if not immediately apparent.
As we detach from nature and attach to technology, perhaps the price is spirituality and human connection...
Running twice as fast, or loving?
The cost of a fast run seems way too expensive.
For me anyway.
The more I read, the more I feel sad and worried over the future that is coming. I don't know if am just the wrong type but I think the fun in this world is because of the high and lows. Perfection isn't something I expect so much and to even consider perfection by a marriage of human and machines would have disastrous effects on humanity. There's a reason why you love certain people and not really love some others. There is something about them that keeps your closer but when I compare love and happiness with your text above, I think at some point in the future we'll lose what makes us human in the first place.
This is the risk we are continually running but it is not a future risk, it is in the present. So many people act on automatic pilot now that there is actually little difference between human and machine already.
Lol.
hahahahah @anomadsoul is certainly a fan of music, I remember months ago he made a video singing with @vanessapineda7
in the future, AI will probably be indistinguishable from "real" human intelligence, so yeah, maybe in the future we will end up loving a virtual being, and it will be just the same as loving a "real" being.
I think so too, love is love right? The only problem with a virtual wife is, who cooks and cleans? ;P
Well another robot of course :P
Just sing already, you just might be good at it. After all you seem quite talented, except if your daughter covers her ears when you burn them at the supermarket.
Flowers die if I sing near them.
Would you come to our summer cottage in summer? We have many unwanted plants there... also my mom resists to get rid of some plants, so you could sing and it would become easier for her. :D
Are the trees in the area mature? if they are saplings, the forest might die too.
The forest is in fact very mature. We should cut the oldest ones. You might help us. :D
Lol. Then why are people asking you to sing in the first place?
because we have only ever chatted together :D
My goodness, then we should draw up some documents for you to sign....
you could be the key to the 21st century human deforestation technologies sir
Butt implants?? LOL is that real?
seriously though, I think you're right and human interaction is changing fast. Notice how many people now look at their phones instead of talking to people? I think it's only going to get worse.
'butt implants' google images.
it is only going to get worse and as @fknmayhem said, there may be opportunities for businesses to have phone-free service.