Introduction
Whether it was an black and white film such as Metropolis, a mid- or late twentieth century classic such as the Terminator films, Westworld (1973) and Death Machine (1994) or a modern thriller or horror such as RoboGeisha (2009), we have all seen it – the humanity effectively destroying itself through inventing technology, and that technology then turning on them and either wiping them out or being thwarted, but barely, by mostly human (or sometimes combined – e.g. I, Robot, Terminator 3 and 4, to some extent Terminator 2 *Terminator is so well known and considered so influential that it has been put in the archive as a form of a national cultural treasure – cf. here) effort.
It has become a very strong part of our current society – almost as much as mentioning, half-jokingly in most cases, just what you would do “in case of the zombie apocalypse” (code for, I hope, a set of unforeseen, very difficult events or possibly just if you suddenly ended up in the story for most) – to consider technology dangerous. Not dangerous in the sane sense that says, anything can potentially malfunction (such as and especially electronic parts of any moving vehicle or computer), break down or even be used irresponsibly (like making a toast sandwich while soaking in a bath irresponsibly…), or dangerous in the criminal or political sense, with few laws regulating the impact of developed technology on human rights, the potentia of new weapons, the very real danger of hackers and remote technology.
We are talking an aura of factuality of Otherness equatable with prejudices related to colour of skin, religion and racial background, pets and pet owners (*consider difficulties getting an apartment with pets or going to a café or a restaurant, despite there being no realistic reason for this behaviour; insurance covers any potential damage to the place you are living in, or you have to cover damage yourself, much like if a drunken party or a spousal battery case went out of control on the apartment or house itself; as for the fear of contamination, humans are far more likely to contaminate other humans (or animals! cf. here, here & here) rather than the other way around, and the widely differing laws and approaches – such as cat cafes and dog friendly cafes and restaurants – show very clearly that this is an inflated, baseless fear, based on our perception of Other also meaning contamination… much like expecting all LGBT or black people to be disease carriers), LGBT members. We are talking about the Other that disturbs the fabric of our social, cultural and religious reality.
While we can probably all agree that technology can be dangerous in the ways I have mentioned above, the same ways that everything can be dangerous if something goes wrong (and you have never seen wrong until you are a beginner rider on a spooked horse galloping on a road you don’t know through the night, cf. footnote A) or if a person decides to act in a way that endangers others (deliberately or incidentally, like the automated cars’ drivers involved in accidents that could have been prevented (cf. here)), there is a sane way of worrying and the paranoid way of worrying.
Sane way – choosing to familiarise yourself with the technology at hand. Choosing to use it responsibly (such as not plomping into your car seat half dead from alcohol thinking it will cart you home on its own). Choosing, as a country, at least in the early stages of development, to enforce a law that causes people to take a few hours’ class on how to use a self-driving vehicle responsibly (thus far, not done… but it would be something to consider (cf. here, here, here)), much like you have to learn to drive stick if you have driven automatic only. Choosing to sit down at a summit and drafting a clear proposal of how we are going to structure human rights within this rapidly changing, deeply technological world (cf. here). Choosing to adopt those rules as a state or country. Choosing to teach children how to be safe with technology. Choosing to teach older generation how to be safe with technology. Choosing to slap down all and any ideological or political movements that seek to use technology in a harmful way, whether it is by hacking to influence the outcome of election (cf. here, here), spyware (cf. here), a form of control, internal or external (see my article on human chipping) or use of technology as a weapon of war.
Paranoid way – screaming that we are all doomed, never learning to use technology and effectively doing nothing constructive but being a hindrance to the above being put into work.
Technology is happening. It will continue to happen, and the very irony of this is that we use technology to announce our fear and hate for it. It is a part of our lives, and that is all that it is. Existence of bread does not make people fat or addicted to carbs. Their eating habits (and those are in a large proportion a concoction of person within their social, cultural and religious world – please consult Lupton’s book (cf. footnote 1), as well as Mary Douglas’ (cf. footnote 2) on the matter; for practical tips, I suggest Marion Grillparzer’s original Fatburner (cf. footnote 3)) are the problem. And, speaking of eating habits, thus far, we have neither forbidden bread nor other potentially fattening foods… we are, however, trying to point out to people that exercise is healthy, and hitting the problem of a hateful response (even body shaming!) from many. In short – if fat is connected to numerous illnesses and bad psychological and physical states (cf. here & here), and exercise and healthy food are the solution, we have still not gone so far as to force people to do this rather than what they normally do; even so, the angry response is often out of proportion, with people of different shapes (and without medical reason, which can exist (cf. here)) feeling under attack and retaliating even when they are not.
Which is body positivity and which is pressure? How far do we go with body positivity before we are either grooming people to be fat or body shaming them?
This same problem exists with human response to technology. While there are undoubtedly many issues to consider, from the freedom of speech not being extended clearly to the online speaking (cf. here), to considering that criminals are adapting, to the perils of advanced war technology being only a matter of price, to yet unknown problems that we will face as technology advances further, we will never resolve them by digging ourselves into the greatest extreme we could consider – a form of denial and hate of the fact that today may not be the same as tomorrow.
At the same time, a negative approach hinders the possibility of the positive sides of progress being accepted well, fast and efficiently – there are many who will profit from new medical advances that often still get lumped into the same category, and yet they could save someone’s life or ease their suffering, many whose lives could be made or are made better by even so exotic an advancement as android help (cf. following 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 & 7).
Imagine being a woman recovering from a sexual assault – a sexless, calming, gentle approach from a robogyno would probably be a lot more welcome than even a (potentially judgemental or prejudiced) female nurse or doctor. An android working fingermarks (for those who only know fingerprints… that is what fingerprints are called until we think we know who left them (cf. here)) in a lab could do so without the bias that has been known to cause wrongful convictions in the human teams (cf. here as well as previous; that is why many labs choose to withhold all and any information on the case when the lab team works on the material/physical data, so as to minimise even the subconscious solution seeking or prejudice). An android police officer would not immediately suspect a subject due to their race. (cf. here)
An android pilot would not turn up drunk or drugged, causing a plane to crash due to his habit (cf. here).
We already have many technologies working for or with us in everyday life. Your phone conversation is curated by the computer – the connection is no longer manned (or womanned) by a person (cf. here & here). The ATM makes sure you can fly in late, withdraw cash anywhere in the world and have that hot drink you need (trust me – I can relatte) without there having to be an exhausted bank employee at a till somewhere, or, horror of the 19th century, having to wire someone at your bank to send you more money to a specific location (you’ll be aware of that if you ever read any classics other than Dickens). The automated cashier has not only made it faster for us to do your shopping, it has also lessened the pressure of an angry, impatient queue on the cashier staff, has elevated their position to a form of shopping staff rather than a near-automated, depersonalised, exhausted being and has definitely given them a set of new skills that they previously did not have.
But these things come with associated behaviour. I have had the chance to observe automated cashier related behaviour in three countries by now, and here are the results.
- UK relies heavily on automated cashiers. They are generally staffed, with a few of the staff politely present to help in case of trouble (after all, a person may be disabled, may have mental or simply health issues, such as high fever or a case of bad exhaustion, making them think less clearly, or is foreign/unfamiliar with the type of the cashier – they do differ greatly from country to country – or simply uncertain, like some fragile older people or anxious people in general) or aid with the products that need staff acknowledgement before being purchased – knives, medication etc.. The automated cashiers are now the predominant way of buying things, and are used for small or large items, any amount of items and regardless of whether you want to just do a quick purchase of a sandwich or have your week’s shopping to do. The staff, as well as other shoppers, will queue or wait quietly, patiently, only popping up if you seem to have a problem or a question. The machines are easy to use, clearly structured and pleasant to look at, resembling a baby of a love affair between the ATM and a computer (if there was a grandparent weightscales in the mix somewhere). What people do NOT do – they do not crowd you; when a machine is free, the next person in line steps in, regardless of whether or not they seem to have been waiting for that one in particular; there are no issues about how many items, what and how; the staff is there to help, not crowd you.
- Slovenia has a large amount of automated cashiers by now. In appearance, they greatly resemble the British ones. They are staffed, but the staff is (generally) far less polite and less well informed on the workings of the machines. Culture-typical prejudices and attempts at imposition of pointless rules (such as thinking that they should be for short purchases only in some but not all stores, thus effectively attempting to crowd the remaining till workers – fewer in numbers and therefore even worse pressed), rudeness and impatience mark the experience. People use them the same way as people in Britain do… but to potential grumbling of the staff. Other buyers are likely to crowd you, no buyer lets the other hop ahead as is done in UK if they have a large cartful of shopping but the other shopper has only a drink. Respect for the personal boundaries (which is also typical for Britain but not at all for the passive-aggressive to fully aggressive Slovenes and ex-Yugoslavians) often fails to exist (especially with older women). An attempt at “not letting someone get one over you” by trying to force a person to wait for a specific cashier rather than clear the queue by going to the next available cashier is definitely present, especially with the older, less educated, more aggressive generation.
- In France, my experience is limited to Carrefour in Orleans. The machines there are not appealing to the eye, though I can’t comment on how well they are kept. The staff is halfheartedly present. Rules exist about how many items per purchase (no clear limitations on alcohol or cigarettes buying having to be done via a person confirming one’s age seem to exist, but that might be me not noticing), regardless of this causing crowding of both the regular and the automated cashiers. The automated cashiers are pushed into a small, narrow area delineated from everything else and difficult to physically navigate, especially for the disabled (and I definitely saw that). How well trained the staff is, I cannot comment, because I did not manage to have any real interaction with them on the occasions I went shopping.
These three experiences are a very clear showcase of how diversely humans behave in contact with new technology. France, for instance, is relatively behind the times where technology is concerned, especially given its position in the world otherwise. It is, one could say, exceptionally backwards and rigid in many ways, and this shows in the reluctance of including technology in their day-to-day lives, in spite of necessity; online presence, for instance, is smaller for France than for many other large countries (cf. here, please consider the populace size in relation to predominance of use), and even they are absolutely miserable in comparison to US and UK (Japan is technologically advanced, but I cannot comment on online presence, especially externally interpretable online presence).
Slovenia, while extremely rigid, is a country where many big businesses have managed to anchor their stores – such as Spar – and these businesses often compete with each other, as does the clever local who notices that the lack of adaptation will cause a decline in business (examples – Spar vs Mercator (cf. here – Mercator had been Slovene owned and administered but has been bought by Croatian Agrokor in the past few years) ). This means that the presence of the technology is not as unusual as it would have been a few years or a few decades ago – one informant told me how her family protested/boycotted the ATMs and credit cards when they started turning up cca. 90s from their description; the reasoning was that they were deemed “suspicious”, “destroying our way of life” and “unsafe” – , but the rigid behaviour is desperately trying to either subsume it or somehow go around it, while still going about its usual way.
As technology evolves further, behaviour will have to evolve as well. That means that there will be adaptive and maladaptive behaviours, including denial and renouncing of technology as it happens… but sooner or later, those doing so will have to adapt, regardless of their prejudice.
But how does this prejudice even happen? What starts it, and how will it feature in our near future? Are concerns of killer robots real or merely the result of that prejudice? And whether or not they are, how will these prejudices influence our behaviour towards technology in the first place?
This article explores these questions from the anthropological perspective predominantly; as behaviour is a mixture of responses of personal within the SCR environment as per the < > scheme (cf. footnote B) plus the learnt, mimicked or defied influences from that environment plus changes within person and the SCR structure (where, for instance, change has been adopted to some extent), psychology and anthropology (what I call, in my work, anthropsychology) are crucial to understand if we are to understand what we can expect and prepare for it.
WHAT CAUSES BEHAVIOUR?
Behaviour is a set of responses to actions and reactions in our surrounding world, as well as internal state (anxiety due to a certain event we are still getting over, indoctrinated dogmas, personal likes and dislikes that influence our perceptions, both based on actual events or taught responses).
As such, behaviour is predictable but diverse and often rapid in shifting; especially indoctrinated behaviour can cause a knee-jerk reaction into an automated response from a person who otherwise seemed to be acting within the norms of averages (example – sudden “shock” at realising someone was gay as cause of murder in the US has only recently stopped being mollycoddled as “natural” and accepted… in other words, it went from aura of factuality based perception of normality in which the person suddenly reacted as if perceiving themselves in mortal peril and defending themselves at all costs to recognition of prejudice based crime (cf. footnote 4, here & here)). This is what causes people (and behaviour) to fall into two large categories.
- Fluid is behaviour that is heavily adaptive to our situation – it is the evolutionary trek to survival. This is behaviour that bases action and reaction on actual and factual events in one’s life. For example – jumping out of the way of a speeding vehicle is an actual response to a factual event. Neither my dress, sex/gender, orientation, religion or lack thereof, colour or race have a thing to do with it, and are therefore not included in my thinking (otherwise typical for rigid behaviour). My response is a reaction based on observation of the other’s action (so seeing that the driver isn’t slowing down) that caused danger/potential danger and needed to be prevented. Equally, looking out and seeing that it is raining or that it might rain (or having heard/seen on the news that there is a high chance of precipitation) and equipping myself properly (to my standards of what I feel suffices!) is a reaction to an action/potential action that is factual or highly possible. While my behaviour may be predictive or preemptive (e.g. getting jabbed for all the necessary possible illnesses when travelling, taking a set of warm clothes on a camping trip, learning self-defence in case I might need it one day) and these actions apply to more or less probability, they are all based on perception of reality that is not influenced by induced perceptions. Rain does fall. Cholera, yellow fever and Japanese encephalitis do exist. It is snowing. The weather gets suddenly cold even in the summer, especially in the mountains. People can pose threat to other people.
In opposition to this, we have rigid behaviour.
- Rigid is any behaviour that replaces actual and factual events with induced perceptions to a greater or smaller extent. It is not dissimilar to Levi-Strauss’s description of hot and cold cultures (cf. footnote 5); rigid environment imposes and requires a set of unreasonable rules (i.e. rules not connected to real life within the context of human rights based assessment of safety, expected lifestyle/behaviour and material culture) that are set in the fabric of the group in question’s reality solely as a way to prevent status quo from shifting. Choice identity (“any formation of identity that is purely personal and regardless of the SCR patterns of behaviour, and the attached behavioural patterns/choices” (cf. footnote 6) is shunned and made impossible, often to the extent that the subjects suffer a form of Stockholm syndrome and associated behaviours. Most importantly, it is based on aggressive interpersonal behaviour to keep matters as they are (i.e. executions, imprisonments or torture of subjects who do not fall in line, do not fall in line enough, cannot fall in line due to personal circumstances – such as illness or disfigurement – or can be used as an example, a show of force), narcissism (in perceiving one’s group as above all other, and oneself as above all other while within that group and meaningless without it) and paranoia (scapegoating – looking for fault for unconnected events or imagined events/problems with an external (or internal) Other – e.g. witches, foreigners, other groups…). They use a number of sets of tools to confirm and support their aura of factuality (forming induced perceptions and keeping them), while at the same time enforcing a dogma about not doubting it; the concept of wikiality and Facebook’s new idea of making the community the decider of the veracity of news or events fall into that category or hover dangerously close (cf. here, here & here). In short, rigid is the stuff of nightmares, the things we find unpalatable and unacceptable and that are responsible for prejudice, superstition and extremism based crimes everywhere around the globe, at all times. A society can be fully rigid or can have rigid subgroups; but those subgroups are loud and highly active (thus often seeming larger and more influential), and their actions and choices heavily influenced by the maladaptive taught behaviours based on bias and the violence/fear attached to the bias as taught in childhood. Example – the young man shooting at the Afro-American church had reportedly been uncomfortable prior to the deed, because people there seemed nice, but, by his own words, he had to act because otherwise, black people would take the world (i.e. a form of conquering, destruction of “our way of life” claim) (cf. here). Despite factual recognition of their humanity, the fact that he could possibly relate and empathise under different circumstances, the shooter was too heavily steeped into the rigid, indoctrinated state of thinking to manage to pause long enough to begin to question his own decisions and the veracity of the paranoid beliefs that have spurred him into action in the first place.
Much of human behaviour in social, cultural and religious context is actually maladaptive, serving no other purpose than the purpose of existing as a set of group-recognising behaviours in itself. It is not necessary; fluid groups, so groups capable of adaptation, exist just as well, and more effectively, and evolutionarily speaking, this is the preferred way of existence. In animal world, conflict is avoided when possible; as it can lead to danger, disease, loss of strength due to wounds and even death, animals generally do not engage in heavy conflict if it can be avoided (cf. footnote 7). Conflicts that do happen are based on one’s safety (that should include territorial claim to a large extent, as territory means hunting/foraging grounds and water, a known safe resting place and mating/companionship/young rearing environment one knows and has established), hunger or prevention of being eaten. Mating fights can and do get nasty, but not as a rule and while primate groups, as well as penguins, lions and canine species (to give an example) all know interpersonal and intergroup warfare to some extent , its existence is not a rule but a potential, more present in some than other groups and with some individuals. It has long been suggested that these behaviours are natural by zoologists; however, this is dubious, given the diversity in behaviours of the species as a generality. More likely, animals, just like the human animal, can be subjects to maladaptive behaviour (something that you know already if you ever watched Jackson Galaxy or owned a pet with behavioural problems or are familiar with odd, unprovoked animal attack cases) (cf. footnote 7, 7b & C), and as we know, maladaptive behaviour does not have to be limited to a single person – the closer the group, the more likely it is to become a folie a deux, then folie en famille, and before you know it, you have a group or tribe exhibiting a very specific type of behaviour that others may also adapt to in a similar way, or perish/have to move in a hurry.
Moving in a hurry is a difficult feat in animal world, and it often requires trespassing on others’ territories and going without food or water due to lack of resources. Human trouble in the long time past would have been no different. And while humans, as omnivores and hunters as well as scavengers (cf. footnote 8) have, perhaps, a slightly better chance than creatures that rely on one type of food solely, it would have probably still been a troubling and frightening prospect, joint with many risks. This is, quite possibly, how maladaptive behaviour could have become so prevalent in humans especially… but prevalent does not spell out necessary.
Once behaviour is this way influenced, the perception of real vs imagined dangers becomes tainted, and the lines between them blurred. In fluid contexts, danger is perceived or predicted where appropriate – when a speeding vehicle is not slowing down or when a strange rippling in the water may hide a crocodile.
In rigid contexts, a large percent to the entirety of perceiving the environment, and our active involvement with it, including reacting to real peril, become subject to the taught behaviour minus assessment of the situation at hand. Pseudo-reactions are adopted rather than actual reactions; this may have no effect whatsoever or can seriously hamper one’s survival chances.
For instance – while prayer on a plane, when you are worrying about flying in general is not going to influence things either one direction or the other, praying rather than defending yourself while being attacked by either a human or animal aggressor will not do you any good. Praying for strength when dealing with loved one’s cancer may be emotionally soothing, while not changing the effect of treatment; but choosing prayer over treatment will result in the loved one’s death, regardless of many myths circulating out there of “miraculous results”. Praying for your child’s success or against their decision (such as to marry an LGBT or unwanted partner) is already on dangerous grounds, as it might not be physically imperilling at this point to anyone, but is definitely an aggressive, pressuring action, which can result in anger, resentment and further aggression towards the person themselves when your prayers are not answered (rather than accepting this as god’s will, interpreting it as punishment instead and then taking it out on the “guilty” party or yourself – my own experience from working similar cases).
This is a pseudo-reaction at its best – while not utterly catatonic and passive, the person takes action in some form, but the form does not correspond to the necessity nor is it realistic in demands or expectations.
In case of the machines – not putting your hand in while the blades are operating in the blender is a definite, clear observation of necessities and safety… as is recognising dangers of irresponsible drivers as a generality and the peril of them using self-driving vehicles, perceiving them as thinking machines (cf. here), and passing laws observant of possible human rights impeachment when new inventions or technologies enter our society.
Unrealistic behaviour – externalising all and every threat to the technology itself, thus both removing human agency and bestowing it on technology as a form of Other.
While it is impossible to prevent people from criminal action (including using technology in warfare), the definite pro of constructive thinking about the potential perils and how to get around them is a huge step forward already. Imagine doing so as a fire drill – you may never find yourself in an office building on fire, but in case that were to happen, you already know what to do and where to go. Similarly, putting down clear laws is tantamount to agreeing on recognition of what we are happy with and what we are decidedly not happy with when it comes to technology, and it must be done by those who are not subject to prejudice, because laws have been passed, in the past, to discriminate against many groups or individuals as a way of assuring the dominance of a specific line of thought (cf. Dred Scott Decision, Plessy v Ferguson, here, Executive Order 9066). These days, when extreme right (and, to some extent, the extreme left) is very active and disinformation of an agitated multitude is a very present problem, it is that much more important for us to form those laws clearly and without bias. Even if they are broken, we have a platform to go back to, both as a preventative matter and to return to after whatever problem this results in has passed.
If behaviour is largely lumped in the categories of fluid and rigid, with fluid forming the actual response to the environment and the rigid a set of fanciful, aggressive notions outside of factual reality, it is perhaps easier to understand what motivates people who panic about technology. To translate, a fluid person understands that putting one’s hand into the working mixer will result in severe damage to that hand. A rigid person either expects the mixer to attack them on purpose or puts their hand in and blames the mixer for being dangerous. This type of object scapegoating can be traced back to the Ancient Greece, where, when a sacred animal was sacrificed, the priest was officially blamed for the killing, he blamed the hand, the hand blamed the knife and the knife was ceremonially tossed into the ocean (cf. footnote 9, n.b.: this source doesn’t address what is done to the knife). That way, sacrifice of sacred (and therefore untouchable) was still feasible but the rule was technically never broken, at least not without punishment.
TECHNOLOGY IN OUR LIVES AND FICTION
Despite the already well known advances in technology, society is more likely to cling to that which it knows best – the constantly repeated and presented bad robot on a rampage. Much of how we perceive androids, robots and technology in general has to do with a form of Catholic guilt… an induced response of feeling endangered and guilty and expectant of punishment from someone somewhere in the surroundings, starting with the primary caregiver(s)/divine power and continuing with demonic forces, aliens, conspiring governments, corrupt businesses/organisations (including those having to do with law enforcement, such as police, FBI,…), foreigners and of course robots.
This feeling of paranoid expectation of something or someone lashing out can be traced back throughout the history – with peaks and falls as extremes shifted on or off – and is present in all rigid contexts, from rain-forest tribes to people within Western world who have had an upbringing that heavily banked on two things, either together or separately :
In many cases I have seen, primary caregiver(s) and divine wrath become somewhat intertwined, with a child’s fear and confusion at the caregiver’s contradictory behaviour (love and brutality or manipulation) being replaced or externalised by the taught duality of loving god/angry god, thus creating an effective “boogaboo” that controls much or every aspect of one’s life. The intensity is dependent on many factors, and while it would be interesting to go into that here, I will not tangent of the topic that far… suffice to say that this feeling of unease and responsibility for even matters out of one’s hands remains present throughout people’s lives, thus making them constantly wary of some external act of punishment.
Enter robots.
In religious context as a generality, creation of life is either divine property or ancestral property, but already with some form of divine influence or endorsement. Thus, creation of something mimicking life is enough to make some people extremely uneasy – with life being often perceived solely based on observation of response, so action and reaction, joined with the feeling of guilt always present and a wish to avoid punishment at all costs, you can imagine why robots, to many people, represent danger – they embody the notions of uncanny valley brilliantly, and it gets worse the more the person is convinced that there must be a problem.
The idea of easy living is also repulsive to rigid personalities, for the same reason – if you are not supposed to be comfortable (much like in the context of extreme BDSM or Stockholm syndrome), then you will do everything to avoid this. As many religions threaten punishment not only in this world but also the next, the terror of just what might befall in case we are not adherent to the (often very foggy) rules of whoever or whatever has the role of Master in the story, becomes even greater because it is not tangible or easily understood (cf. here).
This means that we represent robots as we see them – as devious, vile interlopers into our perfect or imperfect world (however we personally see it); as dangerous, physically and otherwise, as destroyers of the world itself (basing on religious notions of end of the world, cf. here & here).
At the same time, there is a similarity to them that many are still aware of with us. In Age of Ultron (2015), Ultron himself is a concoction of alien technology plus Tony Stark’s own fears and doubts, both surface and those buried deep into subconscious; as such, Ultron, who lacks empathy though not fully (considering his remarks to the twins and the attempts at almost human behaviour), embarks upon a crusade to save the world by destroying what seems to be the problem – humans, echoed in history, religion and myth alike. Very similarly, VICKI in I, Robot (2004) filmisation considers human warring and self-destructive habits reason for enforcing protection very similar to divine – by destroying some humans and controlling the others, thinking that this would be psychologically fine for them.
So that which we actually fear is a divine/controlling human (parental, political…) presence, subconsciously equal and always external but preying on our internal weaknesses, which interacts as if human but lacks the human capacity for compassion and empathy (usually the first thing to be crushed in extremist context!) to cushion the logic that should clearly spell trouble.
But does it?
Human beings may be a rather imperfect bunch (often a point made even from the more humanised technology such as Vision, who is technically half in half, alien technology in a created body), but at the same time, our empathic side has generally tended to be our winning side, and many horrible things have been viciously rebelled against and triumphed over simply because of that trait. The very reason that we do not simply go with the flow of many rigid strains of thought, belief or politics are suggestive of that crucial thing for change – free thinking anchored in capacity of empathic understanding of others.
This is something easily observed with Seven of Nine in Star Trek: Voyager (1995-2001, esp. seasons 4-7) and Data in Star Trek : The Next Generation and associated films. Seven may have started out as human, but is effectively part machine; she had also been “programmed” (i.e. received a form of indoctrination typical for her cultural group), and many human behaviours therefore elude her. She often seems to lack compassion and acts fully on logic only; however, many behaviours of fully human heroes, within the Star Trek universe or otherwise, pose similar responses as tough choices. Choosing to die (or choosing to sacrifice even a friend) so that many can live is a motif that is not fully modern… we can find it in myths as far back as Ancient Greece, where Prometheus, for instance, risks divine ire to bring humans fire, then property only of gods (cf. here). Resultantly, he is trapped and sentenced to a form of eternal living death – chained to the mountain, he is torn open every day by a giant eagle, which devours his liver and flies off again, leaving Prometheus to suffer the pain of death but without the relief of finally dying, and the process repeats again the next day. It is finally broken by Hercules, who gets away with it mainly because he is a bastard son of Zeus himself and has increased his divine side by having been accidentally suckled by Hera herself (much to her anger when she found out) (cf. footnote 10).
Possibly the most well-known technogeeky self-destructive/friend-destructive tough choice is expressed in Aliens, when Vasquez and Gorman take their last stand to allow the others to escape and blow themselves up along with the monsters.
When we as humans make a logic based choice, our empathy is not taken out of context but included. In many ways, that is correct. These kinds of choices are generally made in the spur of a highly adrenalinised moment, when the peril to someone or something that we hold dear is too great for the peril of our own destruction to be considered as valid. While Seven’s decisions may seem cool and devoid of this, she effectively still makes the same choice based on the knowledge that her new collective (i.e. Voyager crew) may be in peril if she chooses otherwise… even when Janeway herself, for instance, would plow through with a heavily empathic decision, exclusive of consideration of her crew’s safety. At the same time, Janeway’s own responses are inconsistent – on one hand, she will risk everything for a random alien or cause, placing her crew in terrible danger, on the other, she will go to great lengths to protect them, including by sacrificing herself (and potentially her crew in a weird double-up effect, because Star Trek tends to be like that). While her crew are not civilians, and could be said to have entered the situation with informed consent, this should not give any captain a carte blanche to endanger the crew blindly – something Janeway especially seems to be apt at doing – and while her character is remarkable for its steadfastness and stubborn resolve, it is often almost unbalanced by the lack of consideration of the full picture, something that Seven’s presence somewhat alleviates. Data is not much different; his thirst for humanity only enlarges his already present capacity for consideration, offering both balance and action where humans may be led astray or falter.
This is not, however, a robotic trait; it is described in the cool headed everywhere. Perhaps it would be most fitting to say that it is the trait of experienced, whose past has taught them to level empathy with strategy to achieve the best results.
It can fail; we fear that and we express it in humans. In I, Robot, Spooner reveals that his distrust and hate for robots comes from having been in a car accident where a child was also caught in a rapidly sinking vehicle. A passing robot chose to save him rather than the child, because it recognised that the chances of doing so were better, as were his chances of survival. While Spooner claims that a human would know to save a child over an adult, he is not utterly correct; the grisly law of on-terrain first aid is not to choose by age but by necessity. The triage means that the severity of the wounds plus likelihood of aid being successful are taken into consideration, and before any further action is taken, this assessment must take place (cf. here). As someone who has obtained first aid certificate, I am well aware of both that and the human revulsion to what this makes us do… because empathy means feeling a part of peril and pain of the person in question, and triage means that we know we will let some die to help others.
Robot or human? Is that why we often resent doctors?
Do we resent ourselves for having to make these choices when we do?
Most likely yes, at least somewhere in our heart of hearts. A decision may be right, but will feel fundamentally wrong, and it is what we will have to live with. We will go through anxiety, depression and PTSD for it… and perhaps one of the things we resent with robots and technology is that they may have to make the same choice but not suffer the consequences. Which is why we create characters like Data, Vision or Sonny, whose behaviour is modified by an extra bit of humanity – the emotion chip with the first, his blending with human with the second and the slightly adjusted three laws of robotics in the third.
Technology is a form of adaptation. It is no different from the invention of the wheel or flintknapping (cf. here). Therefore, it is not odd that it can be awe-inspiring (technogeekery) just as much as it is repulsive to some; at the same time, the overly positive response can end up with irrational enthusiasm and lack of recognition of facts (something that Mr. Palmer keeps repeating in his articles). This is true of many kinds of technology (and something to consider in human chipping, as I have posited in a different article already mentioned above), and while it is definitely true, if I can borrow the sentence, that “guns don’t kill people, people kill people” there is also the other side of that coin that reads, “people who kill people use guns they can easily get”.
Simple terms? We must remain realistic. We must, as I have stated before, find a sane, safe border between the awed technogeek and the screeching technology hater, between the blind progress and invention striving and the wish to impose a no-progress policy. In other words, we must be aware of the down sides; we must create good progressive laws. We must not forget that technology still means people, human involvement. In many ways, where the IT ends, the anthropology begins.
Even for robots? Yes. In many ways, the more human we make them, the more our understanding of what human is, in its best form, must be involved in that process. To do so, we must ourselves be unbiased or as little biased as possible; often, there is a huge gap between what we think of as human and the actuality of being human. And as all projections (cf. here) are, this one, too, can only lead to trouble.
And there is no doubt that human response itself, in relation to technological progress, will need anthropologists especially to act as mediators between the technology providers and the rest of the world…and, perhaps, even as mediators/interpreters between the created technology itself, so highly evolved robots/AI and the humans.
*(Making, of me, as my OH wisely pointed out, a type of Susan Calvin. I shall not comment on that. 🙂)
This is precisely why my interest in the debate on responsible innovation (cf. here) and my striving to provide my own little bit of insight; this is a topic that is literally endless, fraught with conflict and conflicting feelings (and often, resultantly, information), and is, at the same time, very much a part of our world and our future. Many people, at least to my perception of matters, feel that “technology is coming” (much like winter in Game of Thrones) but fail to understand that much of it is already here. As we know, robotics are used in operations, highly evolved technology is aiding us in forensics. We use technology daily, from the slow cooker and toaster to computers and smart phones.
It is here; not in some far-off future. At the same time, it is still evolving and will continue to evolve further.
This, of course, inevitably brings us to a question on how human can robots (or AI, androids) become. Again, this is an endless topic. What with recent development in sex toys and considering those who live with dolls, one must wonder whether there will be a fight for AI/human couples equality in the near future. For those who live with dolls, an AI partner may be too much (resembling a human in an active form may be repulsing) or it might be perfect. This would mean that a person could choose to live with an android in a relationship very like other relationships. A part of it would be sexual. That is relatively easy, given how much that part of the industry already knows when it comes to making safe, quality products. But the more important part of the relationship would be having a loving, caring, supportive partner, and the knowledge that this is a safe partnership, in which the expectations of the human party cannot be shattered by cheating, arguments or betrayal. It would mean human contact without the human catches. It could be perfect.
Likely, it would require laws to tailor it. There are no laws, currently (known to me anyhow) that forbid creation of child or animal dolls for people who wish to use or live with love dolls as they are generally called. Japanese love dolls certainly present the paedophilic option (cf. here); Western companies dealing with making love dolls, however, generally refuse to. Love dolls aren’t solely used by freaks and perverts as is often the belief; they are probably used predominantly by people who wish for contact but cannot overcome a form of social/interpersonal anxiety and by couples who wish to experiment with/include a third or even more persons but cannot or will not include a human partner. Same – if cheaper, as love dolls can cost a lot of money – approach is used by those who purchase interactive toys (both technologically – e.g. realistic looking prostate massagers or vibrators – or functionally interactive, like Pipedream’s shall we say larger body parts, such as torsos or lower torsos with sexual organs available, or classic blow-up sex dolls). This means that, while the laws should certainly structure in a normative of allowed person (excluding, for instance, children and animals from the list), there should be no reason why a person should not be allowed to enter into a socially recognised relationship with an AI partner. Even inheritance law would not be pointless here – while a partner robot would have been bought, as well as possibly crafted for a specific person, and therefore their property, the owner/spouse should be allowed (like we are with other property) to bequeath it and its use after their passing as they see fit. Bequeathing one’s AI partner their money would simply mean that that robot specifically would have funds for however many more years of its existence.
This, of course, opens further questions. What would happen afterwards? Would the robot be reprogrammed and/or recycled? When is AI’s capacity for learning and interaction equatable with a form of life? If an AI possesses a form of life, is it right to recycle them? Would that mean murder?
Laws and anthropological research joined with the technology advancements are, and I think you can agree with me, the only way to even begin to study and potentially respond to those questions, as well as ensure objectivity. The debate about how human we deem AI has already been expressed in relations to sex bots; not only in Spielberg’s A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001) (which tackles other human/technology relationships as well), but also in the debate surrounding the two extant female sex bots, a BDSM and a virgin one (cf. here). Here, the debate should undoubtedly consider our own behaviours first – how much can we allow to be done to an object that, as of yet, does not have sensitivity or (simulated or developed?) emotions, but definitely resembles another human being. Certain things should be banned in that case, not solely for the good of the machine (in case of advocating a certain set of rights to the AI) but for the good of the potential human victims; the BDSM bot, for instance, should be programmed so that consent must be obtained and a safe word of sorts included. The virgin bot should not represent the widely-spread idea of “first time always hurts” that could be used by budding rapists for their paraphilic wishes. The more human we make robots, the more we have to be aware that their potential awareness should be considered, as should the fact that they may be a replacement for other humans… and there is a dark side to that.
Again, I would caution into logical thinking. Most people’s use of partner androids would be unlikely to be abusive or brutal. They might easily be understood in the niche of (non-sexual) contact seeking where those disenchanted with human double-facedness get a pet instead. As such, they would be a good way of preserving the sanity we get from constant reaffirmation of positive human contact; perhaps not a perfect solution from a psychiatric point, but way above no solution at all.
Similarly, it would not surprise me if partner androids would be created for mourning spouses, with technology seeking to replace the visual and behavioural representation of the lost person. However, this comes with the high potential of frustration and disappointment, as it is doubtful that any technology can mimic to that extent the person themselves; even slight changes in real people over time may go unobserved by their partners until the moment of realisation, and may come as such as shock and with so much frustration and sadness that couples fall apart. For a person to order a replica of their wife or husband in hopes that they can recreate their happy ever after and then notice tiny little things that are different would probably be devastating, and would likely deepen depression and at least extend the mourning period, if not utterly destroy any chance to properly recover from it (cf. footnote 11, here). Nevertheless, the niche is probably going to pop into existence at some point, even just on the internet, created by irresponsible, heartless companies seeking to make money from grief.
REAL LIFE AND TECHNO-PREJUDICE – HOW CAN IT HARM PEOPLE?
Having discussed this, we can now move on to how we perceive and are likely to perceive the use of highly developed technology in our present and near future. The medical consensus is that the use of robotics definitely has pros (cf. here, here, here), especially for the patient, but also for the medical professional, who knows that they have a good technological aid to support them. This may seem as something new and controversial, but it is not. In reality, it is no different to having bought a good sword or a strong horse; in our current world, it is equatable to a good car, reliable tires and above all good communication and home technology.
When was the last time you used your own hand to whip cream or make baiser mass? For those with disabilities, for instance arthritis or muscular dystrophy, these tasks would become impossible and cooking by the use of them an unreachable feat pretty quickly. We don’t think of the kitchen aid as technology, and yet it is… perhaps far more basic and primitive compared to our smart phones, but even kitchen technology is evolving with the flow (cf. here, here, here & here).
The true problem arises especially with the robotic nurses and help for disabled. With a drastic shortage of staff (and often very little funds for organisations to spread around for their pay), many need to rely on support of volunteers or friends and family. A supply of available robo help, so to speak, could change that. It would also provide welcome relief in cases of patients who need lifting but are difficult to lift, as well as genderless, sexless aid to those who feel shy of being bathed or cared for human staff.
However – given our history and how we behave in contexts where rigidity may be at work, one must ask oneself whether that robo nurse would also alienate their charge from other people. Not by being there per se; but would fear of technology allow for laws to be put in place which would ban a charge from entering a café, restaurant or pool with their robo nurse in tow? Can we, in other words, expect separatist action from those who fear technology, especially with technology that strongly resembles humans? A robot could indeed sit outside… but in some cases, that would be as bad as not having them around, as the person may not be able to move freely without them, may require help with feeding or with allergy management? Would they be banned altogether, and looked at funny throughout, even if they managed without their robo help, or would they be forced to sit in separated areas, as seen before, with the LGBT, dog owner and people of different colours/ethnicity? It happens now – I know, from my informants, of many cases where a medical help dog owner was denied even being seated outside in the cold or with the smokers (deliberately being exposed to harmful second hand smoke, I might add!), even as a diabetic who needed food or drink immediately to avoid a life-threatening medical crisis.
While this is likely to happen in, say, Eastern Europe, it is also not unlikely to happen everywhere else – separatism exists and is prevalent in many parts of even the Western world, and should be considered to avoid discrimination that is not really new, but would simply have a new context to work with.
Generally, law states that one’s prejudices are fine and well until they start to influence other people. But we all know that, despite that, many still discriminate.
Robotic help would be wonderful for many; but it would become pointless if it came at the cost of being ostracised and chased away in public.
Another fear many people have is that technology will replace them. To a certain extent, that is true. New technology will both create more jobs and make some obsolete. Just like we have no real need for papyrus makers these days, it was probably a booming trade in Ancient Egypt; at the same time, many jobs that we have now are either going to change significantly, requiring further training (such as medical professionals obtaining further training in that department), or will become outdated.
Palmer listed, among the jobs likely to go extinct among humans, authors and artists. I must say that I disagree; like Kindle did not destroy the physical book, but merely enhanced the reading experience, like animal artists and a variety of human artists do not destroy each other (and other animal and human artists), so, too, we are likely to get a percentage of AI authors and artists and a percentage of human authors and artists. Will publishers discriminate? Most likely, some will; some discriminate in many ways already, cheating authors out of profit or taking control of the work as if it fully belonged to them, making it highly necessary to read the fine print before you sign anything as a prospective author.
But as publishing goes and has always gone, the problem with enlisting only (technically free) AI authors would be that publishers generally make the mistake of trying to :
- Gauge the response of the public to books in a rigid way; that is why, even though it is widely read and accounts for some of the biggest hits of the past two centuries, the fantasy genre is often looked down upon and not published by many publishers… who then miss out when the next fantasy book takes sales to the higher level
- Force the public to read what they feel is appropriate or interesting.
Both approaches fail to consider the variety of desires and tastes, which is why old fashioned publishing often makes such loses. Same is true of art in all forms.
An AI could only cater to my specific interests if it were mine to own, and would spout out stories (or art) to my specifications (now there’s a niche to consider!). If we are, however, merely talking about a robot writer or artist creating a work of fiction to the specifications of the above standards, we are still looking at a potential fail.
So what about the idea voiced by many that robots will take the jobs off everyone? Again, this is unlikely, even if (don’t look now, 3PO) “machines are making machines” fully replaces a large portion of human involvement in production and even planning and creation of demand.
Governments work on taxes. Jobless people make no taxes. And people living and dying on the street in a truly dystopian scenario means that the state dies too. That is why we fear the urn shape that haunts many of states and countries.
Humans function on exchange. While money has been present as a medium for that exchange for much of history, it has by no means been the only one – Malinowski’s book Argonauts of Western Pacific, for instance, relates the importance of the exchange of certain objects in the context of the Kula ring, a form of cultural exchange/cooperation/trade (cf. footnote 12). Shells have been used in the past as a form of money (cf. here). Goods exchange is as old as the world and is still happening.
Exchange, in other words, might shift in how it is done and what is used to do it, but it will remain in existence. Dangerous jobs are more and more often done by machinery; while the level of communication skills may change, this is not likely to differ greatly in the future, nor is there really a problem with it – unless you fancy risking your life and leaving your loved ones bereft, the sensible option of using technology is definitely a preferred way for many dangerous jobs. Humans are, at present, mostly the puppeteers, to put it simply, and that is not likely to change; what is likely to change is how much nearly sentient cooperation they will have from the robotics.
A friend recently voiced a concern that employers will prefer to use technology, because it does not have to be paid, rather than employ humans.
This, again, like discrimination of living artists or authors over AI, is down to what laws we create. A business or company should not be allowed to hire more people than it can afford to pay; it should not be allowed to discriminate due to age, sex, orientation, race, colour, etc… Laws generally uphold that truth for most part, even though, in practice, many employers still discriminate unpunished, for many reasons, from people not taking valuable time from their lives to report them to being afraid or unaware of their rights. In the case of any technology, we must consider that technology is expensive to keep; therefore, the laws set to protect human employees should be clear on how much equipment a company can use in relations to what it is capable of paying – simplified, you should not be allowed to buy expensive equipment the upkeep of which will make people redundant on purpose.
But what about the other side of the coin? Could an AI be discriminated against?
Most certainly, it could. Technology, in all its forms and as it evolved, has been distrusted (even to the point of destruction) throughout history; there are many examples of how advancement in art, science and industry were received badly and shunned or obstructed. This means that a successful AI artist could potentially face the same unwillingness for their art being displayed as the French Impressionist painters did initially (cf. here). They could get the same flak from their co-workers and boss, ending up effectively passed up for tasks or jobs (regardless of how useful they could be) due to what they are.
Unlike human counterparts, the AI would be unlikely to suffer psychological (and associated physical, like lack of libido, trouble sleeping or overeating) side-effects of that treatment. However – would an illogical treatment actually frustrate and harm, in some relatable manner, the most advanced ones? Can we, in other words, make a robot so human that their emotions begin to mimic our reactions to that extent?
Should they, in that case, be given some form of legal protection (and counselling), much like their counterparts?
This has already been vaguely addressed in the Star Trek episode that equated Data with humanity (cf. footnote 13). This means that we are, on some level, aware that we should be thinking that way.
How much remains to be seen.
CONCLUSION
The trouble with this topic is that it is immense. And at the end of the day, it is not merely a debate about objects or even highly developed AI. It is a debate about us. About how we react, what to expect, how to protect ourselves, in the future and now, from ourselves; not the ourselves that create human/world destroying technology of the apocalyptic films, but ourselves of the past, future and present, whose biases create conflict, with technology or without.
Bias has probably been a part of humanity for at the very least a significant part of our history. It would be highly unusual if it was not present now. At the same time, however, we are aware of that, and that gives us both agency to control our reactions in regards to change and the reason to do so, unless we intend to hang on to excuses. The thinking that there has never been change so immense as to upset people is ridiculous; but often, we are too little aware of history in a significant enough way to really notice that this is merely a repeat of our reactions in a situation not dissimilar.
We are facing change. But at the same time, we are also facing a time of political, ideological, group and personal unrest and strife. As always, this means that we have to choose our steps especially carefully, as some dangers are very real (such as war technology in hands of hostile factions bent on destruction, or irresponsible governments shooting themselves in the leg permanently by allowing or failing to pass laws regulating employment of human workers – reads loss of tax money and eventually poverty and the country dissolving as people decide to strike out on their own). That said, we must be cautious and realistic in how we assess the dangers – what people say loudly may not be the danger we should be preparing for, and the actual danger (such as irresponsible driving behind the wheels of AI vehicles or separatism of robo nurse using charges in public life) is missed, even though it should be on our minds as a clear option, given what we have observed ourselves doing for the past few thousand years.
In either case, this is where we need cooperation. Not only scientific, between different disciplines, to ensure we understand real risks and separate them from fictional, or prepare for potential dangers or slowly bring in positive changes in an unobtrusive manner. We need cooperation from those people within deciding roles of our society who are willing to see the trees even though the forest seems vast and immensely loud.
Footnotes:
1. Lupton, D. (1996) Food, the Body and the Self. SAGE Publications Ltd.
2. Douglas, M. (1966) Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo. Routledge and Keegan Paul.
3. Grillparzer, M. (1999) Fatburner: So einfach schmilzt das Fett weg. Gräfe und Unzer Verlag GmbH. (original edition, not the newer ones, as I have not read them and can’t comment on them)
4. Lindenberger, M. “They Asked For It” in The Advocate (April 2006) pp.34 & 37.
5. Bloch, M. (2002(1998)) “Structuralism” in Barnard, A. & Spencer, J. (eds) (2002(1998)) Encyclopedia of Social and Cultural Anthropology. Routledge: London & New York. pp. 798-805 (part. pp. 802-803)
6. Reid, C. & Ravenholm, H. (tbp) Indoctrination and maladaptation in humans.
7. Fedigan, L. M. (1992 (1982)) Primate Paradigms: Sex Roles and Social Bonds. University of Chicago Press: Chicago and London.
7b. Craig, W. (1921) “Why Do Animal Fight?” International Journal of Ethics, Vol. 31 (3), pp. 264-278
8. Binford, L. R. (1981) Bones: Ancient Men and Modern Myths. Academic Press.
9. Porphyry, de abstinentia II.29-30 (account of Sopatrus & ritual of the ‘bouphonia‘)
10. Diodorus Siculus: iv.9; Pausanias: ix.25.2
11. Middleton, W et al (1993) “Pathological grief reactions” In Stroebe, M., Stroebe, W., and Hansson, R. (1993) Handbook of bereavement: Theory, research, and intervention. Cambridge University Press.
12. Malinowski, B. (1922) Argonauts of the Western Pacific.
13. “The Measure of a Man” (original air date: Feb. 13th 1989) Star Trek: The Next Generation, season 2, episode 9
_____________
A. This pertains to my own experience of riding. When I was just a beginner, learning the basics of riding (unlike most, I do terrain riding, which meant learning in the actual environment and not the controlled space of the manege), and I had just barely started to gallop, I was returning to base with the instructor one late night on a lonely forest road. He was quite far ahead, so the horse I was on and myself were pretty lonely (it was, in part, designed to make me comfortable with that concept). Suddenly, the horse’s ears went facing ahead, and then, he broke into a stubborn, really light gallop that I could not stop in any way. I resolved to just sit on top and wait, as I was certain that he was going for the pastures. So I sat on, dodging low branches, while he just kept going faster and faster. As we took a crazy turn into the pastures, he slowed down. In that second, a car, no lights on, sped by on the otherwise unused road. It was then I realised, for all my previous concern, that the horse had saved my life. He had heard the car way before it approached far enough. Had we been where I wanted us to be, we would have both been killed, given the speed of the vehicle and its size. From that day on, that horse had my gratitude and unflinching trust.
B. This mathematical symbol is a useful representation of behaviour within any society or group at any point in relation to the SCR context. I have been using it since the inception of my earliest theories. If the middle of < > represents the most usual response to environmental and non-environmental triggers to an individual in respect to their personality and the scope of expected behaviours in the social, cultural and religious sense, that is the “normality” of the group. The left, traditionally associated with liberalism, therefore represents the more liberal than the normative, while the right, generally associated with traditionalism and conservatism, represents those who are more bound by the rules/perceive them in a more fundamentalist way. The more extreme or relaxed the society or group, the more the whole moves to either the left or the right. The outliers are people who, on the left, represent people who do not follow the social rules in a liberal manner; they are those who shake the boat by presenting new, positive behavioural models and often defy the traditions in order to go with human rights/empathy instead. Outside the right bracket are the monsters. They are the representatives of those who have taken the extreme to a new, frightening and often unimaginable extreme; this is where killers, psychopaths, gunmen and dictators dwell.
C. The subject on animal aggression and interactive behaviour is stupendously vast. What is even more problematic is that it, as well as the research conducted by zoologists, primatologists and other scientists and dabblers (given that this goes as far back as the 19th century or the start of 20th in many ways), is very strongly subject to lack of objectivity from the researcher(s) in many cases, or a specific agenda. I have included two references that I deem important for the reader to study; one of Craig’s debate on the matter in 1921, and a much more modern one by Fedigan (1992 (1982)), because both approach this problematic – while discussing animal behaviour, including fights – clearly and simply. My own observations of animals (be it my pets, or animals in the wilderness during a field trip), as well as observations on humans and their observations, flawed, agenda influenced or correctly applied, have led me to similar conclusions, both on animal behaviours and on human behaviours about animals. Most of the time, research stems from already strongly predisposed ideas of natural order, in which the human behaviour and societies is supposed to be mirrored; this, by default, already biases the researcher and the results of the research as well, as they are not representative of the factual data (much as Fendigan points out) but that predisposition or conscious or subconscious expectation and relation/explanation of the events. This topic also touches the problem of wikiality, as the “truthfulness” of research/statement is often determined, by wider public, via sources, online and offline (possibly predominantly Wikipedia itself by some?) and yet, very little of questioning such flawed research sees the inclusion into the collection of “facts” on a specific topic.