“And, yes, words matter. They may reflect reality, but they also have the power to change reality - the power to uplift and to abase.” These are the wise words of William Raspberry, the late African American Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for The Washington Post to remind us of the influence that words exert on human thinking and behavior, and thus to choose them with great intention and care. As humanity strides deeper into the digital age, allowing itself to be increasingly governed by the technocratic structure of life, our use of language continues to evolve to reflect this new milieu. Human beings are increasingly describing or referring to ourselves using words that reflect a dehumanising tendency while uplifting things that were meant to be subservient to human beings and possessed nothing more than instrumental value.
In our relationships with people and things around us, there is a natural desire to extol what we treasure and gives us happiness. A man may say to his partner “You are my queen” even though her royal highness has to prepare his dinner everyday before he comes home from work. People give human names to their pet dogs, cats, hamsters, and parakeets, and refer to them using gender pronouns of “he” and “she” which are meant for human beings. When pets die either of old age or some unfortunate accident, some people even organize funerals or some special ceremonies in their memory. In a few extraordinary cases, some people whose pets outlive them bequeath their possessions to their furry friends.
And while leaving all your property to an animal might just be too outrageous for some people, we can probably empathize with someone who had found only in his or her pet comfort, solace, happiness, and loyalty but not in fellow human beings, not even his/her own family. So, we understand why animals and people are placed at a higher level by those who find value in them based on their subjective experience no matter if others might agree or not.
To me what is cause for anxiety is another phenomenon in human society that potentially leads to a much more dangerous human future than we might even imagine – the uplifting of technological entities while simultaneously debasing humanity itself. The increasing importance that we give to technological things are clearly seen in our lives. Our work, leisure time, relationships, shopping habits, and even worshipping activities are increasingly being facilitated and directed by digital gadgets. As Artificial Intelligence technology advances, we can expect to witness greater prevalence of AI personal assistants, robots as waiters at restaurants and as workers at hospitals and factories, robots in our homes as housekeepers and as pets. We can also expect to see more virtual reality characters created to serve as actors, actresses, fashion models, and yes, even someone’s lover, husband, or wife.
Simultaneous to the ever greater importance and value that is bestowed upon technological entities is the debasing of the human being as a unique creature in a class of its own. In the past, the fear was that excessive anthropocentrism would lead to human beings placing themselves at the zenith of the created order, thus giving us justification to dominate and manipulate everything – both biotic and abiotic – to satisfy our whimsical needs. While this fear is legitimate and continues to be a tremendous threat to ecological wellbeing and flourishing at the present time, in the future, this problem might give way to another equally worrisome dilemma – human beings might debase ourselves to such an extent that we no longer see ourselves as anything more than a machine that is substantially the same as one of the technological entities that we own (not to mention the nightmare that our machines may eventually own us).
There are plenty of evidence that indicates this is oncoming if not already the case. Human beings are already designing our work habit and workload in accordance with the requirements of technology. We might think that various technological gadgets have been developed to make our work easier and faster. But in reality, we are not working any less. Rather we are now doing more work than ever before because thanks to technology, work follows us everywhere we go – in bed, in the bathroom, in the car, on the airplane, even at the dinner table. There is a Vietnamese saying, “Even Heaven has to avoid mealtime when making a strike.” This is meant to express the absolute significance and sacredness of eating a meal. But as is often the case in contemporary society, many things have become even more powerful and influential than Heaven or God, among which is work. One of the virtues of robots is that they can work long hours and do not need bathroom breaks. Humans have to take bathroom breaks. Yes! But we can also write a short email while sitting on the toilet or quickly reply to a WhatsApp message while at the urinal.
As human beings become more immersed in digital technology and our lives become more intertwined with the gadgets we own, we have begun to identify and describe ourselves using terms that usually are applied to machines. We talk about “resetting” and “rewiring” our brains as if the human brain is no more than a complex network of wires that can be fixed when something goes wrong. There are so called expert instructions on how to “reprogram your subconscious mind” as if human consciousness (which no one has truly understand what it is) is something comparable to a computer that can be upgraded with the latest version of a software. And we talk about “recharging our batteries” and “rebooting our immune system” as if our bodies are merely mechanical entities that can be plugged and unplugged.
If words have the power to debase as Willian Raspberry claims, then the words above clearly represent self-debasement – whether intentionally or not. Every human religion and culture for thousands of years have tried to exalt the human person in various ways. The Abrahamic religions affirm that human beings are created in the image of God and thus reflect the divine in our very being. Jews and Christians are expected to be stewards of God’s creation by caring for Our Common Home. Islam holds that human beings are called to be viceregents of God and charged with the responsibility to improve the conditions on Earth. In the Vaishnava tradition of Hinduism, the Lord Vishnu is believed to have at various times incarnated as human beings in order to solve specific crises and issues plaguing humanity and restore order and regularity of the worlds. The Buddha taught that being born as a human person was essential to emancipation from the cycle of rebirth. While there are higher realms of existence filled with tens of thousands of years of bliss, only the human person through the process of self-cultivation can achieve enlightenment and eternal liberation from suffering. Vietnamese folklore asserts that the Vietnamese people are the offspring of a union between a fairy and a Dragon Lord. Thus, the Vietnamese identity is far from something ordinary and mundane but rather quite singularly supernatural. And Confucianism holds that human beings possess a particularly special position because humanity constitutes the third element in a triad relationship with Heaven and Earth.
Despite religious and cultural wisdom over the course of human history repeatedly affirming the uniqueness and value of human identity, we are casting these age-old insights aside by identifying ourselves with the gadgets that we create. We are rejecting the most extraordinary and noblest aspects of ourselves in exchange for solidarity with digital entities comprised of hardwares and softwares. This new consciousness is reflected in the present directions of technological development which is aiming towards the point in which human beings and machines become one – a state which is called transhumanism. If and when transhumanism becomes a reality, humans may live longer, may process information faster and become more intelligent, may see and hear better, but like it or not, we will no longer be human in the truest sense of the word. However one sees this human-machine union, it cannot be denied that transhumanism is literally dehumanising. Intentionally or otherwise, we are giving implicit consent to this human future by the way we nonchalantly depict ourselves today.
No comments:
Post a Comment