Week 9, April 8
Consider the relationships between emotions and sense of self.
What does Turkle mean when she calls robots “relational artifacts”?
How do we understand ourselves in relation to others? Can a robot ever develop that kind of sense of self, or an inter-personal identity?
April 8, 2008 at 2:54 pm
What Turkle means by relational artifacts are technologies with state of mind and the enrichment of encounters with them comes from understanding this state. We usually understand ourselves from one another through a form of social identity. If we are seen as a social butterfly or as a shy person that becomes part of our identity. If it is communicated to us that we fit specific roles in comparison to other humans then we become those things. We also just distinguish ourselves by things like distance and size. We assume that through our communication to each other that was is being said is actually how the person is actually thinking. We conclude that we can actually trust how a person expresses themselves to be a reflection of their state of mind.