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Abstract
The cybernetic imagination refers to literature and fiction focusing on the socio-economic and ethical impact of machines, automation and computers on society. In the last couple of centuries, the cybernetic imagination experiments consistently with scenarios of technological dystopia developing a generalized anxiety towards the consequences of technology. Today, research is concerned with the apparent replacement of reality by virtual worlds and an impeding A.I. takeover as digital technology permeates almost all economic and social sectors. Therefore, this study intends to answer a question asked by Isaac Asimov in 1984, “why this fear of robots?” After the Second World War, the questions asked in parallel to Asimov’s, particularly in the literature of Philip K. Dick, are (1) what is reality? And (2) what does it mean to be human? As such, since the cybernetic imagination frequently portrays violent contests between humans and machines, we proceed from the idea of “agonistic play” discussed by Mihai I. Spariosu and introduce the Quantum Relations Principle as an alternative ontological, ethical and coding paradigm. In this sense, this study (1) observes the tensions of replacement leading towards ontological uncertainty as a form of playing with reality, (2) analyzes potential intimate emotional connections in playing with affection with intelligent machines in the fiction that resembles (a) cognitive affection, when the artificial entity does not have a physical presence, (b) partial cognitive-physical affection, when the intelligent machine has only certain human-like body parts, and (c) replication, in fiction that portrays robots as indistinguishable physically and behaviorally from human observers. However, the play of replacement is suspended in the cybernetic imagination and the history of computing with the hacker culture. Playing with computers, rather than having similar expectations of replacement, finds in the hacker culture a creative imperative proposing ethics of playful exploration and innovation. This study then concludes by adopting the a “process ontology” to observe reality outside the play of replacement between the real and artificial and draws from the concept of “oikeiosis” to propose the development of digital virtue for responsible A.I. and artificial reality design.