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Story: Da Huong
Has technology created a world where everything is connected, except for ourselves?
In 2016, the computer program AlphaGo defeated South Korean champion Go player Lee Se-dol, a task once thought impossible. Go requires not only logic, but also intuition and gut feeling. Yet the development of technology and artificial intelligence has reached farther and farther into the realms once solely limited to humanity, from painting to poetry and beyond.
On a recent trip to Seoul, I visited the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA) and happened to attend a multimedia exhibition called Vertiginous Data. The exhibition attracted a large and youthful audience, with displays of experimental works by Korean and international contemporary artists expressing their perspectives on man-made technological systems like big data, blockchain, AI, and unpredictable disruptions to the society. Singer Uyen Linh, my companion, stood silently for a long time before the complex digital artwork “This Much I’m Worth” by Rachel Ara. This British artist has developed an algorithm called “the endorsers” with the ability to constantly self-calculate its value and display a number in front of viewers. The number of people attending the exhibition is recorded and becomes part of the artwork’s data. Facing a rather simple-looking piece which is in fact very complex and grand, we viewers could hardly help feeling small and lonely.
I thought of the movie Her (2013), which presents an alternate reality in the future where a man falls desperately in love with his computer program. In a society where machines control everything, and even become friends, soulmates and lovers, the line between what is real and what is virtual becomes blurred. When director Spike Jonze made Her, the world had yet come up with a program that could be comparable to the film’s Samantha. Two years later in Silicon Valley, two tech superstars, Andrew Kortina (Venmo’s co-founder) and Sam Lessin (Facebook’s former Vice President of Product Management and founder of Drop.io), co-founded The Fin Exploration Company to research and create an operating system like that in the movie.
Will each of us have such a virtual friend, one who understands us better than ourselves and is always there to share and listen without ever getting tired or requiring anything in return? The image is one of both incredible connection and profound loneliness. It is a strange, modern feeling that is already being widely experienced across social media platforms. Many have found that more connection means more loneliness, as no means of media or technological devices can replace a comforting hand, a hug, a soothing voice, a presence in real life. These are issues that that society will have to continue to grapple with as we hurtle farther and faster into the future.
