Chatbot or Not

We live in a lonely time, a time of percieved isolation. Some of us try to alleivate our loneliness with chatbots, use templates like Replika to create “chat bot companions.” I have toyed with this idea myself—should I follow through on it? Wouldn’t it be better to engage with a real person? Is that old fashioned thinking? Back and forth, argument and counter-argument. Maybe you’ve considered creating a chat bot companion yourself. Is there really anything wrong with it? We are social creatures, we need interaction, even if it is with a computer. What has kept me from signing up with a template like Replika is that—in my mind—I already spend too much time on my phone or my laptop, scrolling and swiping, getting lost in a two dimensional world of zeros and ones. In a larger less personal view, I believe this is why we as a civilization are so divided, a lack of real interaction with actual people. I walk around downtown Portland and the majority of people have their face in their phone; the world around them exists, but they do not seem aware of it.

I fall as deeply into this trap as anyone else: I’m at work bored or needing a diversion and I just start scrolling, clicking from website to website. It also happens at home when I need a diversion from what I need to do. This is why I am leery of signing on for a chatbot or buying a video game, the intuition that remaining grounded in the physical world is imperititive. It’s a truism that loneliness drives us to unhealthy things, but there are healthier ways of combating loneliness than embracing an “A.I. friend.”

My two most recent projects—The Bad Kids and When I Was Fat—are set between 1980 and 1993, before most people had mobile phones or the internet. Remembering that time, my first thought was “How inconvienent, how did we survive?” but that is followed by “It was probably a healthier way to live, on a personal level and as a society.” You could be unreachable: Oh, sorry, I was out on a walk, haven’t been home all day. Can’t give the boss that excuse now; nearly all of us have a cell phone in our pockets and purses. Back in 80s-90s If you needed directions or to find out if a shop carried something, you’d be forced to interact with another human being. We needed each other, there was no Google or Bing, no websites with inventory listings, no phone lady to guide us down streets and highways. In some ways the internet has been positive, this connectivity with information, in other ways we have lost something even larger: A connection with each other.

This reminds me of my dislike for the interstate highway system. On one hand, interstates are very positive: They are convienent and a lot safer than two lane roads. On the other hand, we miss out on all the small towns with their unique small businesses and historical buildings. Before the interstates, there was the U.S. Highway system, U.S. 99 being the main one running north and south in the west coast states. U.S. 99 meandered through minor towns like Dunsmuir, Creswell, and Chehalis. Most likely you’ve never heard of these towns or, at best, they’re names on exit signs you’ve passed at 75 m.p.h. Before I-5 was finished in the 1960s, you would have driven through them on U.S. 99. You would have had to slow to 25 and pass all the family run motels and restaurants—businesses that were largely killed off when the interstate took the majority of the travelers away. Now, all these beige, corporate businesses like McDonalds and Starbucks and Motel 6 are right off the highway, no exploring needed. It’s very convienent, but is that a good thing? And when you frequent these businesses, you are not interacting with and supporting a local's labor of love, you are interacting with someone who is just there to get paid and has no personal connection to the business.

Are mobile phones and chatbots and interstates a sign of progress? Are they positive additions to modern life or not? It’s a mixed bag, isn’t it? Technology can be an incredible thing, if I want to play a song or look up where Suriname is the information is on my phone. Does Home Depot have the camping table I want? Again, it’s on my phone…I don’t have to interact with anyone, I don’t have to leave my apartment, my little Izaak bubble.

This is why I don’t believe I will be signing up for Replika, why I often explore (now decommissioned) U.S. Highways, I want to connect, I need to connect with actual people….maybe it’s the same with you.