I was recently fiddling around in UT's computer lab using an illustrator application. I was trying to draw an e-reader that had all the qualities that people have been wanting-- ability to reproduce for loaning, water-proof, durable, biodegradable-- I was trying to draw what this could look like. It occured to me then that holy crap we just want these things to be human. (Think about it, like what Terra was writing on in "Consequential" and Schaberg commented on-- we want hard plastics to compost in "human" scale... like a human. And what Jeffrey said about loaning works, that sort of reproduction is like pregnancy and offspring).
And so, after looking up the the Turing Test (thanks poprockpolitics!) I have to agree with this notion that digital media and technology is trending towards more human-like qualities. But that is just the flip side to the coin. Jonas is right too I think. As we travel is this digital age, aren't computers and technology cognitively defining us? I am not the first person who has thought this. Last semester, a class mate, Keaton, threw out this idea when we were reading Phillip K. Dick. This author definitely understood the idea of the humans and computers slowing approaching eachother along their spectrums and eventually merging.
Of course the second technology gets too human, we again have a problem.
Or do we? By that time, humans might have [evolved? modified themselves?] to the point where humans and machines are nigh indistinguishable. We could even become symbiotic... but you make a fascinating point. When my computer's acting up, what I really want to do is talk to the damn thing and make it see reason, and I'm always irritated when I'm reduced to searching through files and changing settings. It would be so much easier if it could just tell me what was wrong.
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