Gonna be real with you: this has big “old man shakes fist at cloud” energy.
There is nothing inherently wrong or lesser about online interactions that makes them inferior to “irl” interactions.
There is nothing inherently wrong or lesser about online interactions that makes them inferior to “irl” interactions.
They are inherently lesser because they lack full spectrum of senses man has evolved to have. In person we don’t just see and hear our counterparties, but are able to exercise all our senses. We touch when we shake hands; we can smell someone else in the room with us; we can even taste should we kiss, whether as a greeting or romantically. We can sense the heat rising from others, and see all their body language in full resolution, not just the lower-resolution, in-camera subset. In person, your buddies can slap you on the back; you can interact physically; you can enjoy one another’s presence. In comparison, an online interaction is awfully weak sauce.
I suppose there are some things that an in-person meeting lacks than an online one does — a full database of all previous interactions sure would be helpful. And it’s convenient to be able to fully consider one’s response, rather than have to answer immediately (but does convenience equal goodness?).
I'm about 10,000 kilometers from most of my friends right now and have been for several months. I can stay in touch with them in a way that would never have been possible several decades ago. This is a wonderful thing.
Equally, the negative effect of social media on teens, its impact on depression and suicide rates, is a terrible thing. Let's look at [4] below:
> There have been increases in adolescent depression and suicidal behaviour over the last two decades that coincide with the advent of social media (SM) (platforms that allow communication via digital media), which is widely used among adolescents. This scoping review examined the bi-directional association between the use of SM, specifically social networking sites (SNS), and depression and suicidality among adolescents.
This isn't 'old man shaking fist at cloud'. It's real negative (life and death!) impact on the young, growing, and vulnerable.
[1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S245195882...
[2] https://www.apa.org/monitor/2022/03/feature-minimize-instagr... -- notes both good and bad effects
[3] https://www.harvardmagazine.com/2022/02/right-now-social-med... -- adults, not just kids and teenagers!
Also, "kinetic options" generally are not on the table online, so the risk profile of an online interaction is different, too.
Online, humans interact with what are "reduced" versions of humans.
I've got no idea how far we are from useful bio-printing, as I've been seeing the same headlines for the last 30 years: here's some cartilage and by the way we're also working on internal organs.
The famous mouse — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacanti_mouse
History from a research lab — https://school.wakehealth.edu/research/institutes-and-center...
TED-Ed: Printing a human kidney - Anthony Atala — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bX3C201O4MA
The Thought Emporium: This Machine Grows Living Flesh — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_ZGq8Tah0k
Matt Gray is Trying: biomedical research — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DvJauB0KyU
Specifically, think about what The Thought Emporium is trying to do: make a living meat robot. Imagine they succeed. I have no idea how long this will take, so your imagination is all you have for now. Flesh on the outside, robot brain on the inside.
Done right, I doubt we could tell them apart from real humans.
Worse: I'm sure we'll falsely convince ourselves that there is a way distinguish nature from artifice, and many natural humans will be dehumanised and killed as a result. (And that's a separate question to "have we made a machine that has qualia?")
But for now, sure, it's easy to tell humans and robots apart when you get to meet them in person.