A lurking question regarding the relationship between the self and technology is what the self is anyway…that is, what’s this thing we call the self, that we’re worried is somehow damaged through either AI or social media?
To start my blog post off with a joke that I absolutely stole from someone else, if I got 100 people in a room and asked them “what is the self?” The results would come back with 102 different answers. Me personally, I think that the self is the knowledge of who you are. Even if that knowledge is something that my conscious mind doesn’t have immediate access to. I can say “I am Marvin”, well, what does that mean? I’m a boy, I’m a religious studies major, I’m an artist, I’m Episcopalian, I’m a good listener…. I think ya’ll get the point. I hear a lot of folks say that those “superficial” things about us aren’t really our true selves; that it’s something deeper, on a more spiritual or scientific level. And I’m not saying they’re wrong, as who am I to tell someone who their self is. But I believe that myself is every single thing that makes me up at this moment. And in the next moment I will be a new self and I will never be the same self twice, because every moment I live, I am changed. And I can understand why the growth of AI or the impact of social media can feel really threatening to the “self”. Social media is just the newest tool that humans are using to be mean to each other. We’ve always been mean to each other, but we just couldn’t be mean to a random person across the world, we had to settle for bullying the kid who sits next to us in science class. And when every negative (and positive, and neutral) interaction we have changes that self, it’s worrying to think about how rapidly and drastically we are being changed by the constant horrors delivered right to us 24/7, when only a few years ago the kids at school had to stop harassing you when you got home.
-Marvin
Wow I really like how you worded this, especially your last lines and when you said “And in the next moment I will be a new self and I will never be the same self twice, because every moment I live, I am changed.” That really stood out to me and I think it encompasses the whole idea of this prompt. I don’t think technology (specifically social media) necessarily makes people scared of themselves changing, I think the whole idea is that the rapid growth of technology and how fast everything around us is changing is what creates the fear of losing who we are as humans.