Abstracting Humanity: The Death of @MarsPhoenix

The Mars Phoenix lander died today, sending this final post on Twitter (which translates to “Triumph” for all you humanoids who can’t read binary). It’s strange that I’m so sad because, well, it’s not a small puppy, it’s a robotic lander- and it’s not actually sending me catchy Twitter updates- and it’s not actually writing blog posts like Phoenix Mars Lander: This is My Farewell Transmission From Mars.

It’s interesting exploring this phenomenon for me because it shows that humans are- to put it bluntly- stupid enough to love anything. I mean, really. I miss @MarsPhoenix Twitter updates already, and I’m sad the little guy had to freeze to death- even though “the little guy” is probably some technophilic late 20′s engineer who’s just having fun crafting her next update post and responding to questions from other Twitter friends. It’s interesting because it shows our capacity to connect, even when we are connecting with non-humans (or humans through a non-human proxy personality). Some may think that ridiculous- some may even think that it’s what makes the cylons win- but it is what makes us human, and so I’m all for it.

It’s also what makes social media- and I mean ALL social media, from Twitter down to written letters. Who are we talking to when we use social media? When I connect to a friend using a letter, or a micromessaging service like Twitter, or an IM interface like Skype- or even a blog- am I really connecting to that person? There have been times when I’ve chatted with Jessie and wondered whether it was actually Jessie on the other end- it was just for a split second- mind you, I’m not paranoid- but I wondered nevertheless.

In day to day interaction, we all wear our masks, but masks in social media are different (or are they?). There’s actually no way for me to know, at least initially, that I am NOT communicating with the Phoenix Lander. If I am not, maybe it’s not an engineer at NASA, maybe it’s someone on Twitter that I already know. For that matter, much of the communication in Social Networking space might be someone you already now, or only think you know. I personally control 6 Identica/Twitter handles, is this disingenuous or normal?

The levels of abstraction are interesting bordering on scary. A robot writes a blog post- but that robot’s post is actually written by a person at NASA (right?). A person at NASA writes on another blog- maybe that’s the same person, maybe it’s not a person at all. Maybe, both blogs are actually written by a computer, the same one that writes Mars Phoenix’s Twitter updates. We know how clever those chaps at DARPA are, maybe they’ve figured out automated communication already.

The new Battlestar Galactica attempts to ask this question from the face-to-face communication standpoint, but we don’t need science fiction to explore it non face-to-face. I’d like to say that there’s a point at which the line between human and non-human begins to blur, but that’s not actually true. The reality is that there is a point at which the line between human and non-human becomes unimportant to the human. Specifically, I see two possibilities for defining my emotional interaction with the Phoenix Lander’s pseudo-personality:

1. I desire to interact with the Phoenix Lander as if it is a living entity. I desire it because it’s fun, interesting or simply easy but I desire it. I have chosen.
2. I’m required to interact with it as a living entity because I’m a human and have no other interaction method biologically programmed into my primitive monkey brain. Everything I see is just another monkey to me. I have no choice.

Either way, the point is the same. I’m not blurring the line between human and non-human, I’m purposefully devaluing that line. It is not important to me whether it’s a human or not. Truthfully, this line becomes unimportant to anyone who chooses to use non face-to-face, what I’ll call face-to-phase communication¹. Be it twitter, telephones, or letters, the result is the same- we interact as humans.  We mostly hope for the communication to be human, but in reality we don’t actually care because, for the most part, we’re going to treat it- and we, in fact, are treating it- the same.

The questions that I’m asking are not new. They’re not based on things that have happened since micromessaging, IM, or even computers. They’re as old as time.

1. Am I now communicating with the human that I intended to communicate with?
2. Does it really matter to me?

You know my answer: “Bring on the cylon hotties!”

1. Can I coin that phrase? [↩]

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