Our fourth week of class introduces us to Black Mirror: Be Right Back, Social Network vs. Online Community and Replika. This week’s viewing contained several qualities of social media and expanded on the possible role of technology, specifically with our digital footprint. The reading also encapsulated the impact of social media and broke down its different sub-categories.
This week’s Black Mirror episode adds a new twist to the British science fiction series. A woman named Martha (Hayley Atwell) had recently become a widow after losing her boyfriend (Domhnall Gleeson) in a car accident. She is overwhelmed with grief when a friend advises her to try an online service that allows individuals to communicate with their deceased spouses. At first glance Martha is not entertained by this notion, but with a baby on the way she begins to warm up to the idea. After her persistent friend and looming loneliness Martha begins to upload videos and messages to the service allowing the program to create an artificial Ash. The service interpreted his online tendencies and used his lingo or specific terminology to communicate with Martha through instant messaging. She became more involved with this new Ash and looked to enhance her connection further. The program offers an experimental stage which provides a clone of Ash and his tendencies. After a long night of drinking and fun under the covers, Martha came to the realization that artificial Ash is just a hollow shell of her Ash. The last few scenes include Ash standing on the edge of a cliff as Martha couldn’t decide if his present was a pleasure or burden. The final scene displays Artificial Ash in his new living quarters (the attic) as their daughter is celebrating her birthday with BOTH of her parents.
I found the programs ability to display some verbal cues but possess no physical emotions particularly creepy. To have a conversation with the pieced together remains, of your significant other’s digital footprint sounds like a stretch to me. I can understand and empathize with someone experiencing grief over a lost loved one, but to go to the extremes of cloning that individual to cope does not seem reasonable to me. Our conversation today (9/6/2020) in class combined with the several different showings and trailers provided by Dr. Schlegel did open my eyes to certain people’s attraction to an inanimate object. Everyone’s tendencies, morals, ethics, personalities, etc play a major role in how individuals respond and handle situations. To judge someone without fully understanding their influences and background seems harsh and out right unfair. However, I can not speak from your perspective. Please leave a comment below!
Social media is a broad term that is becoming more complex every day. It can be broken up into two separate sub-categories. The first being Social Networks. Social networks revolve around in-person communication and recurrent interactions. These relationships also have a prior history and are people who constantly use verbal conversations.This would most likely be seen in a work environment or clique.
The other subcategory of social media is Online Communities. Online communities consist of members that may share a common interest or lifestyle. These individuals may have not met in person or come from the same backgrounds. However, these individuals still can share information over these various platforms. This allows the users to communicate over digital messages and disclose (or not disclose) their personal information.
My last discussion-based viewing will be on the story of Replika. Replika was designed to be your AI friend that you teach and grow through conversations. It keeps you company, journals your life and helps you explore your personality. Replika is a way to self-reflect and develop your thoughts in a deeper discussion. I find this new approach for handling grief or the occasional loneliness an effective one. To have an available outlet right at your fingertips could be an efficient tool. I hope Replika continues to advance their platform and other entrepreneurs pursue a similar goal.
Published by: Samuel Erickson
Weekly News:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.ft.com/content/95dc5584-1c12-11e8-aaca-4574d7dabfb6
Emma Jacobs takes a unique perspective on the effects of grief and technologies ability to help cope.
SOCIAL MEDIA & SOCIETY 
Yes, I agree that it is hard to understand people’s relationships with an inanimate objects but these days it is a thing. Some people are better interacting with people online than in person. I understand that aspect but knowingly talking to a robot is another stage for me that I cant get with. The thing is that they are making these robots seem real and have mention which can confuse a person and have them feel as if it real but I am in no place to judge like you said. I understand it but will never go to the extreme.
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Putting yourself in someone else’s shoes is harder than we make it out to be. We always preach this, yet, when we look at the way that someone else copes with a situation, it can be hard to understand their thought processes because everyone copes differently. I think that this is where AI comes into play. I personally cannot see myself going to those lengths to recreate a lost one, but I can see how it could help or how I might be drawn to doing it under certain circumstances. I also see how peer pressure or social norms could play a role. It feels unsettling or strange to us now. But will it still when everyone is doing it?
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Hello there Samuel, I enjoyed reading your blog Thought it was very interesting and agree with you about the Black Mirror episode. I thought that a clone of someone would be very weird because when someone does pass away they should not be brought back as something that they aren’t. No clone would ever be the same person you once knew, but I also know that it could possibly help a lot of people for closure purposes.
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Hey Samuel,
I do agree with your point that what Martha did in the episode is not an active way to pass through the period of grief. I do believe the only way to pass through the hard time is to let it go. I like the Replika app as I will prefer to use an app which can get some peace of mind and can help me pass through your hard times. I personally liked the concept of Replika as while using it we know that we are talking to a reboot while in the case of “Be Right Back”, I think it would be hard to talk to a person who you know is dead.
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