Technology – an agent- a company – a part of our being
This post is a follow up of a post I wrote a few months ago (post 6) when I first started reading a exploring the relation of human and robots through the theoretical framework of feminist technoscience. I am taking as a reason a strange (for me) event that happen in a café in Hackney and remind me this aforementioned relationship.
To begin our story, it was Sunday and unlike many people in London I had a busy day with performances. Somewhere between the gigs I had a small break and I decided to sit in a café and do some admin work along with a cappuccino and brownie.
“No Laptops on the tables”,
after I have order, the waitress said to me. I felt bad for various reasons. Is it that bad to have a laptop as your company I thought.
“Apparently you are not allowed to be alone” I said to the ladies next table as my Greek temperament couldn’t let it go.
And I am thinking how many protestations and how much effort has been given especially in London for the freedom of being whatever you want. To fight the racism against homosexuality, against different ethnicities, against disabilities. To build a better culture of mutual respect. Furthermore, I am thinking how many artists have dedicate their practice to communicate these issues. Among those, multimedia artists that use computers and computational practices.
But here we have protest against the computers, computers as a company. Computers that brings you closer to other friends that may be in different countries, computers that gives you knowledge, computers that assist you in various ways.
Apparently our society is yet afraid of technology and its implications. This event verify once again the conclusions of the previous posts that technology is not fully accepted as part of our lives, part of our being. If a laptop is not acceptable in a café in London (a huge capital), I am not sure that people are not yet ready for AI.
And finally, the same way we advocate the sexual choice, the eating choices etc, the same way we need to accept if someone wants a computer, and I believe in the future a robot as a company. We humans have a judgment and the free choice to do what we want. I have the choice to go out for a coffee with a human or with my laptop. So if there are more cafes like that in London that they want to make a statement they should definitely consider another way less offensive to my laptop.