Loneliness in connection

Story: Da Huong

Has technology created a world where everything is connected, except for ourselves?

AlphaGo defeated champion Lee Se-dol in Go

In 2016, the computer program AlphaGo defeated South Korean champion Go player Lee Se-dol, a task once thought impossible. Go requires not only logic, but also intuition and gut feeling. Yet the development of technology and artificial intelligence has reached farther and farther into the realms once solely limited to humanity, from painting to poetry and beyond.

Her (2013)

I thought of the movie Her (2013), which presents an alternate reality in the future where a man falls desperately in love with his computer program. In a society where machines control everything, and even become friends, soulmates and lovers, the line between what is real and what is virtual becomes blurred. When director Spike Jonze made Her, the world had yet come up with a program that could be comparable to the film’s Samantha. Two years later in Silicon Valley, two tech superstars, Andrew Kortina (Venmo’s co-founder) and Sam Lessin (Facebook’s former Vice President of Product Management and founder of Drop.io), co-founded The Fin Exploration Company to research and create an operating system like that in the movie.

Will each of us have such a virtual friend, one who understands us better than ourselves and is always there to share and listen without ever getting tired or requiring anything in return? The image is one of both incredible connection and profound loneliness. It is a strange, modern feeling that is already being widely experienced across social media platforms. Many have found that more connection means more loneliness, as no means of media or technological devices can replace a comforting hand, a hug, a soothing voice, a presence in real life. These are issues that that society will have to continue to grapple with as we hurtle farther and faster into the future.

Her (2013)

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