Anthropomorphizing non-living objects is not novel to many of us, as the author
describes that he will “occasionally use salty language to describe home appliances and
devices when they malfunction” (Hasan), as many of us do too. Obviously, we know the
appliances cannot understand our frustration or adapt to our moods accordingly. As a
matter of fact, most of the time the device will just continue operating as it usually
does—which is unfortunate for us as users but part of the plan for the engineers of
these appliances. These machines (appliances, computers, etc.) are literally
programmed to carry out specific operations and nothing else. Realistically, depending
on the technology we are looking at, it could very well be programmed to only do one
thing, maybe a few things, but in a very sequential or pre-determined way. So we can all
keep cussing at Google Maps all we want; that is not the issue here.
The real issue arises as technology such as AI models continues to become more
intelligent (able to carry out more tasks or tasks in many ways), and the responses they
provide or procedures they carry out become more “meaning-semblant” (Titus). To
elaborate on this, it is okay for people to fall in love with some AI model, but the ethical
concern pointed out by Ali Hasan arises when AI behavior becomes so fluent and
responsive that people stop treating anthropomorphism as metaphor and start treating it
as an explanation for why a piece of technology responds the way it does. The overall
effect that Hasan has noted is that a large gap forms between the user’s interpretation
of AI responses and how the AI actually operates. Although knowledgeable individuals,
such as the Google engineer Hasan mentions, have gone so far as to believe that AI
systems are conscious, Hasan’s central warning is that we should be cautious long
before that point. This false narrative—often portrayed by the tech companies
themselves—that computers truly understand our deepest biological mechanisms can
lead many people to over-trust AI for problems that cannot necessarily be represented
by words interpreted as combinations of symbols.
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