After reading this piece, I thought about two aspects of this. First is how we should look at the existence of machines. Should we support the development of machines, or should we get rid of them? This piece gives two examples. One is Vashti supporting the existence of machines and relies heavily on them. The other is Kuno who likes to get close to nature while trying to get rid of machines. In my opinion, strongly relying on the machine can lead to emotional emptiness and the loss of human self-awareness. If we only contact through the machine with our family instead of meeting them, we will feel distant from each other, that’s why Kuno only wants to talk face-to-face to ease his pain. If our lives were entirely dependent on machines, we may lose the ability to explore, to learn and to create. How can we fully understand something without touching it, how can we get to know nature without experience it by ourselves? We may just search for everything by machine and don’t discover something new. If one day the machine broke down, we may not know how to repair it. At that point, without the support of the machines, how can people go on living. I think the machine can exist but people should limit the use of machines to a certain extent. It can make life easier for people, and it can also make room for people to create, to explore and improve existing technologies.
The second aspect is how to deal with the relationship between people and machines. Should we see them as our tools, as our partners or as something we should respect? What impresses me the most about this article is that Vashti is in awe of machines. This relationship is very much like the man to man relationship or the man to god relationship. This makes me think of the artificial intelligence that’s out there now. Machines are becoming more and more human. Many robots can even interact emotionally with humans. The emergence of such machines has caused a great deal of controversy, and many fear that machines will one day take over human, as this piece puts it. But in my opinion, we should encourage the development of the AI because it is still able to provide companionship to some people, to cure their mental and emotional problem. However, we shouldn’t rely on AI for our thoughts and judgment. We have to have our own ideas and creations.
All in all, we should keep our creativity and our ability to think as a human being. In the meantime, to explore nature and to use the machine properly making them help our lives.