//There has reportedly been a surge in demand for digital pets in India—Tamagotchi, artificial intelligence (AI)-driven digital companions, and blockchain-based virtual creatures such as CryptoKitties—suggesting a renewed cultural and technological craze. Does nostalgia drive it? Is it a response to loneliness in a hyper-digital age? A reflection of emerging dependency on artificial companionship?
…Nishant Shah, Director, Digital Narratives Studio (The Chinese University of Hong Kong), told Frontline. “Digital pets might look animistic, but on the back-end, they are not very different from the phones and laptops we carry and have intimate connections with. They are robotic, but they are guided by the same technologies that have been positioned as companion apps for our sociality over the last three decades”, he says.
When thinking of human-digital pet connections, what comes to the fore is the ways in which digital technologies are recrafting our understanding of automation, consciousness, intimacy, and life, says Shah. “The ways in which digital pets become a part of our everyday life are not just about that connection, but about the design of singularity where we are growing more comfortable with sapient, interactive, autonomous technologies that are becoming a part of our social and intimate lives.”//
Full article: https://reurl.cc/bmnD3X (Frontline)
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