Mythical Media Backends

Abstract

To address the financial costs of the “loneliness epidemic,” technological solutions are being prioritized. This chapter examines whether the promise of human-machine communication (HMC) as a technological solution for loneliness (e.g., virtual assistants and social robots) is harmful, rather than a solution. Focusing on commercial, computational, and scientific promises of advancements in HMC and AI, this chapter deconstructs the mythical promise of human-machine communication to make us less feel lonely, drawing upon science and technology studies, the study of emotions in critical theory, and the work of hermeneutic phenomenologists. The chapter concludes that the social, political, and economic consequences when communicative and social robots are broadly adopted to care for people’s social needs would harm people’s capacities for living together across difference: tactile communication, empathy, and meaningful relationships may be lost in HMC.