Technology of the future shows that humanity will be very lonely

The Ballie robot, introduced by Samsung at CES 2020, will have a feature called 911 for help when someone falls. It is unclear whether the “artificial” of startup Neon has the same effect or not. As such, we will then have to rely on a device or avatar that looks exactly like a human being and not someone else.

According to Samantha Murphy Kelly, CNN writer, many of the technologies at CES this year paint a picture of a lonely man. It was a lovely robotic cat, responding to its master’s commands; is a toilet paper robot that can carry a new roll of paper until its owner runs out of paper; or Lovot robots are born to give you a hug.

Technology is increasingly associated with loneliness: we easily see the image of a programmer sitting at his office in the middle of the night, gamers are not out of their seats for 12 hours or millions of people spend too much time for smartphone screens instead of interacting with people around them. Social networks encourage us to interact with people who don’t really care, following the virtual value that the like button brings.

For many people, being alone is a real problem. According to a survey of 20,000 people aged 18 and over in the US by Cigna, nearly half said they felt lonely (46%) and the same number said they did not interact real with friends and family every day. .

That reality shows why technology “companion” takes off as an independent catalog, especially among the elderly. A report by the nonprofit AARP shows that social isolation affects more than 8 million adults and is related to health issues such as depression, dementia, and high blood pressure.

Companion technology can range from caring robots, pets to virtual reality “vacations” (VR). For example, some communities allow their citizens to travel to Europe with … VR headsets, helping them to go abroad without even having to stand up. Sometimes, friends and relatives also meet in the virtual world.

Alexandra Hamlet, a clinical psychologist at the Children’s Brain Institute, specializing in anxiety and emotional disorders, said that from a psychological and health perspective, nothing can be done through interactions and connections. people. From the Stone Age, humans have sought each other to survive. That has not changed so far.

No matter how advanced the technology is, there are still barriers when establishing relationships with robots and electronic avatars. For example, there’s a syndrome called Uncanny Valley, where people feel weird about things that look like people and not people (like mannequins, clowns, mannequins).

According to Hamlet, no matter how good technology is, whether robots are like humans or cats, we ultimately cannot actually connect with them because until robots become indistinguishable from humans from the Only, voice, manners. That restriction leads to two options: putting technology aside to reinvest in the real world, or increasing reliance on modern technology to fill the void. Based on what at CES, it seems many companies are betting that we will choose option two.