Writing Assignment 3: What reality do you live in?

    The cultural artifact

dealing with computers that has caught my attention many times as I watch television are the HP commercials using various celebrities to advertise their product.  The commercials use various artists from various fields to allow the celeb’s visual autobiographies come to life through simple hand gestures and intricate animations.  Celebs such as Pharrell Williams, Jay-Z, Mark Cuban and Mark Burnett are just a few used in the HP commercials.  Since the commercial is only showing the hands of the people you do not know who they are to start off with.  Each of them carefully and slowly reveals their identity through the items they show you on their computers.  The commercials show that the celebs computers are their lives in a box.  Just by viewing the information that is on their computers you are able to get a good idea of who the person is.  The end of the commercial tells you who the celeb is and concludes that their computers are their lives.  The HP commercials are just another example of Sherry Turkle’s view of how computers can blur the line between mind and machine. 

   The HP commercials show how today we look at computers as our right hand man or as something like a best friend.  Without even seeing the featured artist we are able to identify them just seeing the content of their computers.  Today we use computers for almost everything.  Our relationship to our computers is no longer a business one, but more of a personal relationship.  Our computers are like a mirror image of us and can illustrate our personal identity as Turkle has mentioned in her book, Life on the Screen.  People today tend to rely on computers as they would rely on a co-worker, family member or friend.

    The movie 2001, a science fiction film, was written in 1968 and shows the advancements of technology and artificial intelligence using a computer.  The supercomputer’s intelligence interacts like a human and can mimic human emotions.  The astronauts even treat it like another crewman, calling it “Hal.”  The movie illustrates what they think the future to be like by using an example such as a computer that can beat a person in chess, something that now actually happens.  The entire movie is an image of what the writers saw 2001 to be like including technological advancements and the uses of computers.

    2001 and the HP commercials very closely relate in the sense that they both view computers in an aspect of a companion.  The celebrities use their computers to run their lives and keep them with them no matter where they go.  They organize their lives by this one piece of technology.  In 2001, “Hal” becomes a person to the other crewmates and can even talk back and “reproduce” emotion.  As in 2001 and the HP commercials we often rely on computers to do the thinking for us.  I agree with Turkle, it is no longer our interaction of us and a machine, but rather us and the world.  Today, we no longer see the computer as a physical piece of hardware in front of us.  Instead people see a computer as a link to the outside world and have more of an emotional relation to it.  Our world operates my computers.  This current age depends on computers to interact with others, to maintain relationships, find out information and the list goes on.  Jobs are even being replaced by computers.  2001 is neat because in a way it is almost mocking our society today.  People do rely on technology, especially computers to be the middle man and do a lot of thinking for us.  It is interesting the amount of trust people put into computers to supply the accurate information that we are looking for.  In 2001 the men treat the computer as a human being, trusting it and interacting with it.  Humans today actually do that and view there computers as being loyal and attach emotional values to this machine. 

   The movie 2001 and the HP commercials are also very different.  The movie perceives the computer, “Hal” to be evil in the end of the movie.  The computer was out to get the crew the whole time.  Computers in the movie turned out to be evil in their thinking.  On the other hand the HP commercials view computers as a necessity.  The celebs see them as their lives.  Although the commercials and movie have some similarities in the sense that we treat computers as friends, the reality is that we hardly have any negative feelings toward computers like shown in the movie. 

     In the book Life on the Screen, Turkle makes an observation that "technology changes us as people, changes our relationships and sense of ourselves" (Turkle, 232).  The HP commercials on TV today are evidence of the truth that is behind this statement.  I agree with Turkle, everyone chooses to "perform" the different aspects of their identities, in both real life and on the Net.  Individuals tend to live their lives through their computers; Turkle writes that we are using life on the screen to engage in new ways of thinking about evolution, relationships, politics, sex, and the self.  Turkle explains that we don't have to reject life on the screen, but we don't have to treat it as an alternative life either.  Finding the happy medium and not allowing the computer to identify who you are is the key.  HP commercials would be a good example by showing that viewers are able to identify celebs not even by seeing them but by identifying them through their identity through the screen.  I see where Turkle is coming from and think that we do lose ourselves in computers, “the seductiveness of simulation does not mean that it is a bad thing or something to be avoided at all cost, but it does mean that simulation carries certain risks. It is not retrograde to say that if we value certain aspects of life off the screen, we may need to do something to protect them. (p. 236) Turkle warns that our interaction with computers makes the fake more compelling than the real.  Computers have become a huge part of our lives and you would have to put effort into avoiding them all together, if that is even possible.  With the intense increase in our involvement with computers it is easy to see why they can start to identify us.