Posted on

Kick the Bot, Fear the Dog: Street Psychology and the Coming Age of Mechanical Animals

The first time you see a sidewalk delivery bot, you smile. It is impossible not to. The thing is knee-high, usually white or pastel, rolling along on six stubby wheels like a cooler that gained sentience and decided to take itself for a walk. It carries burritos, or prescription medication, or someone’s iced latte, and it navigates curbs and crosswalks with the earnest determination of a toddler heading for a puddle. You watch it pause at an intersection, calculate its moment, and trundle forward with a confidence that borders on optimism. Your first instinct is to root for it.

Continue reading → Kick the Bot, Fear the Dog: Street Psychology and the Coming Age of Mechanical Animals

Posted on

The Canny and the Dead Canary

We live in perilous times. Those sworn to protect us, betray us. Those set apart to foment dissent are too frightened to stand against the tide for fear of drowning; and so all the rest of us are left to perish, withering in the plains, dissolving along the plattes — but never resuscitating in the pinnacles — and so we are forever, longingly, tripping into the pits of the Uncanny Valley.

Continue reading → The Canny and the Dead Canary

Posted on

What We Have Become and What Cannot be Undone

We live in a selfish world where Social Media has become the public square replacing the private confessional and the anonymous donation box. We click a LIKE button and we feel better. We promote our private good deeds in an open airing and our righteousness quintuples in the amount of retweets we earn. This is all wrong and misguided. We shouldn’t do good things just to be rewarded. We must not aspire to be the hero of our own invention just because that’s the immature nattering standard of the day.

Continue reading → What We Have Become and What Cannot be Undone

Posted on

The Bridge Generation Between the Paper Mountain and the Uncanny Valley

As we descend deeper and deeper into The Uncanny Valley, we are left to wonder if we want those built to be like us, to be like us, or if we prefer them to look mechanical so we can more immediately identify not just what, but who, we are interacting with in our intimate lives.

Continue reading → The Bridge Generation Between the Paper Mountain and the Uncanny Valley