Machines in Our Image
Machine as Lover
Pygmalion creates an ideal human form and falls in love with his creation.
Venus / Aphrodite grants the statue life.
The question is not merely:
Can we reproduce a human?
but:
Can we manufacture the human we desire?
-
⇄ A kiss
A kiss
J.L.Gerome :: Pygmalion and Galatea (1890)
Machine as Mirror
Artificial beings force us to ask what supposedly distinguishes us.
If it moves like us?
If it speaks?
If it remembers?
If it desires?
If it creates?
If it learns?
By constructing the non-human, we investigate the human.
Machine as Double
The artificial human is also a duplicate.
A second body.
A copy that may become difficult to distinguish from an original.
The double turns technology into an identity problem:
How do I know that you are one of us?
-
⇄ carv'd in iv'ry a maid so fair
carv'd in iv'ry a maid so fair
Pygmalion working on his sculpture :: Illumination on parchment (14th century)
