Our Virtual Lives and Digital Companionship: Opportunities and Challenges of Shared Experience in an Augmented Century

Abstract

For much of dominant scientific and cultural history, in disciplines studying human experience, the mind was seen as independent from its environment, and our means for interfacing with other entities was limited to our immediate physical surroundings. Yet in the 21st century, paradigms and lived experiences have undergone significant transformations. Given the amount of communication in which we engage via technological interfaces, and with or through digital or augmented means of companionship, how do we interpret and navigate our personal experience? Here we examine broader societal and cultural forces at play in an era of myriad sources of information and opportunities for stimulation, from interest-based digital communities, “fake news”, ever-enhanced artificial assistants, and nuanced robots and interactive agents. We consider a broad contextual scope concerning pressures from existing social and power dynamics, and examine the means of mapping such influence in our own lives. We also propose a new methodology for exploring one’s personal experience, moving throughout various degrees of hybrid digital existences. With lenses such as neurodiversity and variety of lived experience; technology-reinforced power structures; and means by which to comprehending one’s experience is influenced, we provide an overview of our recent work at the nexus of society, technology, and ethics.

Venue: WeRobot 2022, University of Washington, School of Law