Surrogates

I always liked the movie “Surrogates” starring Bruce Willis. If you’ve seen it and don’t feel like reading my whole blog post, just comment anyway. I’d like to see what you guys have to say about the movie because I have thought a lot about it.  For those that haven’t seen it, the movie is about an alternate, “utopian” future where people rarely leave their homes. Instead, everyone sits in their apartment in a docking station that controls a robot. This robot is an exact replica of the human being in control. In fact, if you spend a little bit more money, you can get upgrades such as body piercings, a different skin color (How does green sound?), or increased speed.

I think the movie presents a very interesting lifestyle concept that seems amazing and desirable at first glance. There is no murder, no pain, and no direct bodily injuries. You never run out of energy because you’re technically sitting in a virtual reality chair all day. You are simply commanding your robot twin to carry out all of your actions, which requires a recharge at the end of the day. However, I feel that an Engineer can’t simply watch a movie like this without analyzing it. While I was watching this movie, I noticed many discrepancies that I couldn’t get past, and I learned why this “utopian society” in so where near sustainable.

First of all, one major caveat to this lifestyle is fitness. In a matter of months after this technology becomes mainstream, humans would fall into a huge slump in fitness and quality of life. Imagine walking around all day, going to work, hanging out with friends, and running all of your errands while sitting, motionless, in a chair in your apartment. There would be no motivation to go to the gym or exercise at all because what would be the point? Everyone would see a young, fit, perfect, albeit artificial version of yourself. If your human body gets fat and soft, it doesn’t matter because your surrogate is in perfect condition.

Another issue I see, that relates to this class, is personal social interaction. At what point do we draw the line between face-to-face communication and virtual communication? The movie makes it seem that there is no difference between interacting with someone in person and interacting with people through your surrogate. The surrogate is advertised in the movie to convey every sense perfectly back to the operator. So, theoretically, surrogate-to-surrogate communication would be the same as face-to-face communication. However, you are still communicating with someone through a computer system.

This brings us to the issue of online social media as we see it today. The line of social interaction is definitely blurring. Is email a substitute for face-to-face communication? Most would say no. What about instant messaging, or Facebook, or video chat? Still, most people would say that these technologies do not substitute face-to-face communication. But the movie suggests that communicating through surrogates is a perfect substitute to face-to-face communication. Then we must as the question, why? What is the difference? You are still communicating through a computer system, but all the senses are there.

It seems to follow, then, that the barrier to having real face-to-face communication is the quality of the communication and the number of senses involved. Does Google Glass then come even closer than video chat to breaking the barrier between digital and analog? Not yet. However, I think comparing the social norms in the movie Surrogates to our current technology reveals an eerie window into the future. Will there come a point where talking to someone in person no longer be necessary because technology has gotten that realistic?