Two news this morning, appearing different, but are conjoined in thoughts for me.
First, former actress Jacelyn Tay and her husband, Brian Wong, are going through a divorce. Jacelyn (43) married in 2010 and they have a seven-year-old son, Zavier.
She assured fans: “Don’t worry, me and Zavier are fine.” She then posted pictures of Zavier spending time with Brian and a “family photo celebrating her son’s achievements in school.”
Jacelyn did not disclose the reason for the divorce and she said: “I do not think I owe anyone the reason for divorce except to my son. Even if you guys know, you can’t help or change anything for us. Hence, I ask all who truly care for me and Zavier to give us a peaceful Christmas this year.”
Now, let me set this clear, my post this morning has little to do with Jacelyn’s breakup. I wish her, Zavier and Brian well. There is life, brimming, unexplored life, after divorce and I sincerely believe that.
My post however has to do with another fascinating article written by MIT’s professor Sherry Turkle. It is entitled “In search of AI - Artificial Intimacy.”
I read Jacelyn’s news and thought long and hard about the fragility of human beings, their vulnerability and mortality.
Seriously, what makes us human? What is it that when we touch someone deeply, say I do at the altar, join hearts and souls with them, we truly experience the fullness of being alive, treasuring every moment of it, and living with such exuberant hope and joy?
And then, when we face breakups, the pain of separation, the longing of a past that is gone forever, or the hurt and sorrow of a lost loved one, what is it that caused us to experience a brokenness that is beyond words as if our soul is torn apart and our world comes crashing down?
The common thread that runs through all that, the highs and the lows, the joys and sorrows, is the humanness in us. And that is as authentic as it gets to being human, created to experience emotions most times beyond us, and they are there to bring us to a higher level of resilience, maturity, growth and wisdom.
This is where a school administrator Akihiko Kondo comes in. Recently, he married the perfect soul mate. It is a singing hologram, a virtual reality bride named Hatsune Miku.
Miku will be the perfect bride for Akihiko because she is very much his own creation or programmed with no free will of her own. She will be a bride that satisfies everything she is programmed to satisfy and I trust Akihiko will be happy, or virtually happy for the remainder of his unusual marital union with Miku.
Ok, I am being sarcastic but here’s my point, and it is captured in this short narration by Professor Turkle.
In her article, she wrote that “years ago, (she) spoke with a 16-year-old girl who was considering the idea of having a computer companion in the future.”
She said: “There are people who have tried to make friends, but stumbled so badly that they’ve given up. So when they hear this idea of robots as companions, well...it’s not like robot has the mind to walk away or leave you or anything like that.”
Yes, that is true. Your robot bride will never leave you. And if you feel uninspired by her response to you when you return from work jaded and disillusioned, you can tweak her up, dial up the algorithm, and get her to say things in a philosophically comforting manner just to lift up your spirit.
Mind you, you know your flesh and blood spouse can never do that. Most times, you have to be her “virtual husband” and bear with her shenanigans and temper flares without the consolation or defence of an algorithmic pacifier.
But here is the catch. Professor Turkle wrote: “These robots can perform empathy in a conversation about your friend, your mother, your child or your lover, but they have no experience of any of these relationships.”
She added: “Mahcines have not known the arc of a human life. They feel nothing of the human loss or love we describe to them. Their conversations about life occupy the realm of the “as if”.”
So there is a trade off.
Robots are “not capable of love, but they won’t break your heart.” Your marriage vows would not be “for better or for worse” but “for better or for even better” because robots rarely disappoint like a human bride or bridegroom often do. How’s that for a trade-off? Are we ready for that?
Professor Turkle said: “To build the robots, we must first rebuild ourselves as people ready to be their companions.”
The fear is that by programming a robot to “love”, to be empathic, we may also see a corresponding change in ourselves to become less human, and more, well, robot-like.
Soon, we may just share the same programmable traits of a robot to enjoy what is virtual but never really real like virtual intimacy, virtual joy, virtual pleasures, and so on.
Professor Turkle puts it this way: -
“We diminish as the seeming empathy of the machine increases. It is technology forcing us to forget what we know about life. In life, you are struck by the importance of presence, of the small moments of meaning, the miracle of your child’s breath, the feelings of deep human connection. When you are thinking about technology, your mind is not on all of that. We programme machines to appear more empathic. Being human today is about the struggle to remain genuinely empathic ourselves. To remember why it matters, to remember what we cherish. These days, to be human is to keep one’s mind on the glory that one is.”
Let me end by telling you how my human heart healed. I have written this before in my blog.
I met a girl when I was twenty one. She came to me young at 16. Still innocent and beautiful, with hair that touched her tailbone, I fell head over heels for her.
We courted and enjoyed the best moments that love in a young couple can ever enjoy. Then, when I returned from overseas, I realised her heart had changed somewhat. She was more distracted, more distant with reservation I never knew before.
Then, one day, I followed her and she was with another guy, her colleague. They were going into the movies. I confronted her, begged her not to go inside. She couldn’t say a word and walked away with him.
My heart shattered into pieces that evening, and as I write this, I can still feel the pain in my throat. That pain seared into my heart, and I had never felt as lonely and vulnerable since that day.
Yet, this bleeding heart never gave up. After tears that nearly drowned my soul, I picked myself up and pursued her. We married not long after that, and where love was once seemed as a curse, we turned it into a blessing.
18 years and three kids later, we are still together. Yes, we have our differences, but the difference is that we aim to resolve them to advance the relationship, not neglect or abandon it.
My point is that you can never program that kind of history into one unfeeling, binary machine or companion.
You can create the most impressive algorithm to roll out conversations that generate empathy, but she or he can never trace the varied, unplanned emotions from day one that breaks one’s heart, heals it along the way and strengthens it with every devotional expression beyond the programmable algorithms.
Truly, you can never experience love without the risk of having your heart broken. Because love is never about sealing your heart from hurts and disappointments, but it is about exposing it to someone you cannot live without, going the distance with him or her, finding that your heart can be broken, but also finding the strength to overcome that, and grow together so that the journey is not one-dimensional, but multifaceted, not mechanical but dynamic, fully engaged and alive, and most importantly, it is about being human, being vulnerable, and not a programmable robot created by you to please you. Cheerz.
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