McLuhan's Tetrad: Humanoids

According to McLuhan’s Laws of Media, every medium has the ability to enhance, retrieve, reverse, make something obsolete, and does all 4 quadrants simultaneously even if it doesn’t manifest (Laureate Education, 2014f). I am really interested in seeing more artificial intelligence in the near future because of the vast possibilities it is capable of providing. Japan has already added Humanoid robots to their staff at local museums (Demetriou, 2014). Matai (2015) claimed that machines would "finally be able to do what we do, in some cases better than us and with higher levels of safety and security" (para. 2). The facility that I work at caters to adolescent patients who could not be contained at alternative schools or who are on break from juvenile detention in hopes of getting their charges expunged. Physical safety, as well as data safety for patient records, is a constant worry for the teachers there. Due to the high turnover rate for therapists and staff, my safety is a daily concern because if I trigger a student-patient by asking them to get back on task in the classroom, I risk having a desk thrown at my head (again) or being physically attacked. I honestly think that humanoids could add value to classrooms such as mine to help teach more students using pre-programmed prompts for lecturing the 6 different classes that I teach and be a buffer between my face and a fist.

What does it enhance?

According to Matai (2015), quantum artificial intelligence may be able to “exponentially speed up the rate at which certain machine learning tasks are performed, and in some cases, reduc[e] the time from hundreds of thousands of years to mere seconds (para 6). Artificial intelligence found in Humanoids also offer customized communication for users to assist in translating information and cater to various age groups. One of the robots hired at a Science Museum in Japan resembles a child and was created to “read news reports covering an array of global issues in a variety of voices and languages” (Demetriou, 2014, para 9). With 3-D printing, robots can be customized to suit a child’s needs and preferences perhaps even having 7 purple heads if the child requested it (Weir, 2015, para. 11). Robots could also enhance physical and social therapy for seniors, adolescents, and individuals with addictions and disabilities such as autism or depression (Weir, 2015, para 2).

What does it obsolete?

Humanoids have the ability to retrieve news and information without relying on actual hardware to access the internet. This would eliminate the need for laptops and desk tops. This will make the retrieval of information become more portable. The wait time for data retrieval and transmission would be reduced because users would no longer have to wait to start up a hardware device such as a phone, laptop, or desktop or opening an application because the humanoid would be active and ready to act on command. This would eliminate the need to have an actual device to save or retrieve information like a jump drive or cd rom provides because humanoids would be fully capable of saving and retrieval such information.

What does it retrieve?

Using the concepts of instant data retrieval and transmission as the internet provided when it was first introduced, humanoids and artificial intelligence has the ability to reduce the wait time for such information.

What does it reverse or demise?

Including Humanoids the work force might reduce the human work force, thus increasing the unemployment rate. Humanoids might also damage the need for social interaction because a humanoid body would be present. Humanoids lack human instinct, picking up on social and emotional cues, which risk offending actual humans or damaging interactions amongst the two.

References

Demetriou, D. (2014, June 25). Humanoid robots join staff at Tokyo science museum. Retrieved from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/japan/10924594/Humanoid-robots-join-staff-at-Tokyo-science-museum.html

Laureate Education (Producer). (2014f). David Thornburg: McLuhan’s Tetrad [Video file]. Baltimore, MD: Author.

Matai, D. (2015, June 15). Artificial Intelligence & Quantum Computing: Utopia or Dystopia? Retrieved from https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/artificial-intelligence-quantum-computing-utopia-dystopia-dk-matai?trk=pulse_spock-articles

Weir, K. (2015, June 1). Robo therapy: A new class of robots provides social and cognitive support. Retrieved from http://www.apa.org/monitor/2015/06/robo-therapy.aspx