I gotta wonder how desperate do you really have to be to have a "relationship" with a computer.
Creepy and desperate came to my mind too. But marketers are great at "creating needs"...
That is weird. People who would like it are weird. I hope we never see a "hiking companion robot". I'd leave the trails.
Even though the reaction I got from my daughter was somewhat similar, she informed me that there is a very real segment of the Japanese population which would actually
request such a device, and, though she herself saw it as totally unnecessary, she felt it was not all that unnatural in the context of Japanese culture.
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I have a "relationship" with my computer. Call it what you want but, there is no doubt it exists. This modern society was not and could have not been foreseen. When I was 15 we marveled at 8-tracks and FM radio. Personal computers with thousands and thousands of files and instantaneous worldwide communication? That was science fiction.
When you put it like that, we all have a relationship with computers. But our computers don't tell us they miss us and can't wait until we get home, or maybe yours does. I guess I shouldn't judge. But this video made it look like this gadget did everything for the emotional side of a relationship. If that's all you need, then hey, go for it.
If I understand what you two guys are saying,
this is more where I am coming from on this and how I saw this video on first viewing. Even though my daughter, like most of the people in the "Man, that's creepy!" group, saw it as a bit weird, she felt it was something not all that strange in Japanese culture, and she didn't see it as something she wanted or needed. "Why would I want a computer for a friend?" she said, "I don't even
like computers!"
OTOH, I was, once upon a time, a user interface engineer (sometimes graphical UI) for a lot of my career as a computer programmer.
I therefore see this as nothing more than an extremely humanized/naturalized computer interface.Please note that, outside of the super-sweet "interactional sugar" of "I miss you!" and such, actual useful things were going on:
- The computer's avatar reminded the guy to take an umbrella "because there's rain in the forecast" - without him even having to ask.
- It reminded the guy to take care of himself by not working too late.
- It unlocked the front door and
- turned the lights on for him when he texted he'd be home soon, and
- (probably) dimmed the lights and
- turned down the heat after he said "good night".
No specific commands were necessary, because his "personal computer avatar"
intuited what he'd need based on normal human communications. More than being a simple "companion" (though that was, of course, the intent of the marketing, one supposes), the way the man and the computer interacted made the use of the computer much, much more natural, however "creepy" that might seem to most people now.
For those of you who haven't seen Her, be sure and check it out. An amazing film about the future that is now.
Yeah, I bought and watched this Spike Jonze movie some time ago. My interest was motivated almost entirely by my interest in computers, so, once again, I probably didn't see it in the same way that most of those in the "Man, that's creepy!" group would
probably experience it. Its main import was the "companion/relationship" stuff, but, stepping back a bit, you could, as Trinity said, see the "future computer interface" stuff that it implied.
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Maybe change out that cutesy voice. YMMV.
The voice is a Japanese "cultural artifact", I think. For instance, some time ago I became interested in a Japanese anime series, "Cowboy Bebop", after buying an entire lot of long-sleeved tee shirts somewhere in town (for running in cooler weather - they were very cheap, like a couple of bucks apiece), one of which had the Japanese logo for the series on the front.
I became interested in what the symbols on the shirt meant, asked my daughter about them and, then, after she explained that it was a popular Japanese anime series, learned about the anime. My daughter is something of an "anime aficionado". The series is based on "film noir", features a "private eye"/"bounty hunter" theme, and music that is characteristically jazzy and "noirish".
Some time later I found the anime somewhere and started watching it, with all of my preconceptions about "noir" I have gathered from watching Bogart and such, and was stunned by the high-pitched voice of the "femme fatale" in the series, Faye Valentine, who I had
expected to have a voice more like Lauren Bacall's: husky and low. My daughter explained that Faye's voice was culturally correct for Japan. There simply are not that many voices like Bacall's in the female population there, and the throaty, low register voice has a different connotation than it does in our Western culture. With few exceptions, it's reserved for males. I understand that even professional women in Japan have somewhat artificial high-pitched, chirpy voices.