The Singularity comes one step closer. Either that, or the Real Doll Apocalypse

[elfs]

satisficing - Seeking or achieving a satisfactory outcome, rather than the best possible. (Deardorff's Glossary of International Economics.)

In a recent article in the New York Times, The Children of Cyberspace: Old Fogies by Their 20s, Brad Stone discusses how his 2 year old now (correctly) identifies a Kindle as "a book," and how every generation is so different from the previous, the pace of change so fast that 40-somethings are bewildered by their wired, multitasking, overachieving progeny. (Hmph. He hasn't met my family.) And I've seen other kids expect laptop screens to be touchable. Hell, I wonder why my laptop screen isn't touchable, and have run synclient into the ground trying to get the touchpad to be as responsive as an iPod.

One of his observations is this:

And after my 4-year-old niece received the very hot Zhou-Zhou pet hamster for Christmas, I pointed out that the toy was essentially a robot, with some basic obstacle avoidance skills. She replied matter-of-factly: "It's not a robot. It's a pet."

Well, no. It satisfices as a pet, which is different than saying it is a pet. And for some fraction of the population, satisficing is all that's necessary.

Stone has put his finger on a problem Peter Watts covered extensively in his book Blindsight, and I've been hammering on since the late 1980s: every iteration of technology that replaces some form of human/human interaction (or human/animal interaction) will satisfice a larger pool of people than the previous iteration. Eventually, at some tipping point, the satisfactory outcome will become the preferable one: having a real pet will be closed in by the PETAs on one side ("Keeping a real animal is cruel!") and the descendants of the Zhou-Zhou ("Keeping a real animal is icky, inconvenient, and allergenic!") and will eventually become taboo.

The same will become true for human relationships. That'll take longer, but eventually it will become true. Having emotional expectations of your partner will seem like an imposition: doing it to a satisfactor robot will seem like a relief to all concerned.

Comments

[dossy.livejournal.com]

"Well, no. It satisfices as a bet, which is different than saying it is a pet."

Is this simply a matter of semantics?

What would you call the classic "pet rock"? Not a pet? Is the criteria that the object must be "living" for some definition of "living"?

[funos.livejournal.com]

Covered extensively? I guess I read the book very differently: all that was in the background for me.

But interesting thoughts nonetheless...

[taerin.livejournal.com]

Having emotional expectations of your partner will seem like an imposition: doing it to a satisfactory robot will seem like a relief to all concerned.

Wow, that's depressing.

[(Anonymous)]

For some people soft toys were adequate. This kind of thing probably isn't quite as new as we think. Of course it is inndeed worrying where it may lead.

The question is whether this is human nature or just a result of culture, as led by manufacturers.

[gromm.livejournal.com]

I was about to say. Especially of four year olds. By the time they're 8, they want the real thing. By the time they're 13, everything in the world is fake and plastic, and we all must rage against the machine that would dare to produce such garbage in such quantity.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_candide_/]

Phew! That's a relief to hear!

[cyber-pagan.livejournal.com]

So what happens to pets at that point? Do Dogs and cats become extinct?

[http://users.livejournal.com/_candide_/]

Y'know, I find that most folks who talk about The Singularity have (A) no clue how exponential growth behaves IRL; (B) no clue at all what exponential growth even is; (C) never heard of a logistics curve; or (D) all of the above. And those who have are willfully ignoring those 3 facts.

Nothing grows forever, folks (exponential growth even moreso).