Exploring the Social Impact of Constantly Listening Technology

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This chapter examines the impact of new technologies that continuously listen to users, paralleling narratives from 'Black Mirror' and 'Her.' It raises concerns about privacy and social interaction, highlighting the experiences of past innovations like Google Glass and their potential to alienate rather than connect people.

David and Tamler lead off with a breakdown of the new commercial for “friend (not imaginary)” a new AI necklace that takes hikes with you, interrupts your favorite shows, and will be there for your first kiss. Then we talk about a new paper co-authored by VBW favorite Joe Henrich that challenges cognitive science for pretending to be universal without offering evidence. A good discussion punctuated by David’s new theory of the rise of the autism. (TLDL the nerds are having sex).

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Kroupin, I., Davis, H. E., & Henrich, J. (2024). Beyond Newton: Why assumptions of universality are critical to cognitive science, and how to finally move past them. Psychological Review. [harvard.edu]