Technological Empathy In A Tedtalk By Chris Milk

Technological Empathy

Today plenty of people think about what it means to be human, some people think that it is unimportant. As human beings with limited time on this earth we must focus on bettering the lives of the individual and the lives of others, the most important question is definitely not what makes us human. Culture may be seen as something that tears us apart. The fear of death is much more universal than thought and something that may rip us from our time with those that still alive. Some may even go as far to say that the ability to empathize with other people is neglectable. The only thing that makes us human is the ability to ask that question, or at least that is what some would say who have not put much thought into the

Milk explains how virtual reality works by putting a person in the life of another with technology. “So it’s a machine, but through this machine we become more compassionate, we become more empathetic, and we become more connected. And ultimately, we become more human.” (Milk 3), here we can clearly see the effect of technology on our humanity. Before this Milk states how he took this to the United Nations to show them the lives of those that they are making decisions about, which allowed them to have a deep and personal connection with people they would never meet in the real world. Virtual reality goes further than any media so far to allow people to connect with others. Individuals coming from the videogame world already understand the importance of technology on our humanity.We as people spend our lives focused on ourselves but virtual reality allows us to focus on another person’s life. To be clear, virtual reality and video games are not the same thing, but over time they are becoming one with better technology like the oculus rift. Gamers connect to characters by putting themselves in their place, much like readers with books. They see themselves as the main character, whether it be Lee Everett or Cloud Strife. They make decisions as them, and when horrid things happen in the game they feel as though they are happening to the player. On the top

Asking the question of what it means to be human is a significantly important for humans in general and for those who make characters to make them more realistic. That being said, technology does have it’s downside, even if those negatives are not listed in this paper. In general, people no longer think much of our humanity and are surprised in the data they will find after a bit of research, which coincidentally can be sawt out with