“I heard one tourist ask his wife if the children were real or ‘fake’ (and you could sense his psychological readiness to consider them, at will, extras, dummies, or moving robots).”
In the past, it’s been pretty standard and easy to distinguish between robots and humans, but with advancements in technology this will become more difficult. Disney is currently working on technology for soft and interactive free roaming robots to take the place of character actors. This would allow children to hug the robots and interact with them as if the robots were humans to a certain extent.
Even though we recognize things are robots we still interact with, attach emotions, and associate names and personalities to them as if they were alive/human. People name their cars and roombas. My roommate, who is a computer science major, says you can’t yell at technology if you want it to work and instead have to be kind to it/use positive reinforcement. Movies like Wall-E and Big Hero 8 have us become emotionally attached to the robots. There’s robots being created to feel and respond to human emotion. This creates the question of if that’s even possible. Can robots really feel emotion or can they just simulate emotions based on what is expected in a certain context? If we’re applying Baudrillard’s philosophy, maybe it doesn’t make a difference. We might not be able to identify a difference.
At the same time, in some ways humans are becoming more robotic. “Disneyland is a place of total passivity. Its visitors must agree to behave like its robots.” We have become used to just going through the motions/daily routine and doing what we’re told. This occurs in a working setting where people are driven by efficiency and completing tasks or in a place like Disney where we go to have fun/escape, but are told what to do, where to stand and how long, and how to feel.
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