First off, before proceeding any further, be sure you have read the excerpt from Brian Christian’s The Most Human Human, which I linked to in the previous Canvas item in this module. BEFORE you watch my final presentation in the course (“Romance, Artificial intelligence, and finding connection in the 21st century”) you will need to visit the following website:
There you will see a button labeled “READ AN EXCERPT” below a picture of the cover of Brian Christian’s 2011 book The Most Human Human: What artificial intelligence teaches us about being alive. You will need to read the entire excerpt provided there. (It corresponds to the ten page Introduction to the book.)
Next, watch this video from January 2020 where I gave a presentation entitled “Romance, AI, and Finding Connection in the 21st Century” (note that this presentation predates AI chatbots such as ChatGPT and AI such as DALL-E):
Video: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/ldl8mpmeirodij6qw35ta/presentation.mp4?rlkey=he04tsg6yfo2q9pampxeg4q2o&st=n7bywpme&dl=0
Once you have done all of the preceding tasks, here’s your assignment:
In your initial post I would like you to discuss the following questions: How do we connect meaningfully to each other? Should it be morally acceptable to connect to technology in a meaningful way? (In other words, attempt to have a meaningful relationship with technology, as opposed to another human being. Also, please note that I am NOT asking you to discuss whether it is morally acceptable to connect to other people using technology, which I think is clearly morally acceptable.) If so, describe what the technology would have to be like for it to be acceptable to meaningfully connect with it, and if not explain why. Posts should be about 3-4 paragraphs long. Be sure to use specific references to both the excerpt from The Most Human Human and my presentation in your post.