In his multivolume book Modern Painters, published in 1856, John Ruskin (1819–1901) invented the phrase "pathetic fallacy."
He explored the habit of poets and artists in
Western literature putting human feeling into the natural world in book three,
chapter twelve.
Ruskin said that Western literature is full of this fallacy,
or false belief, despite the fact that it is untrue.
The fallacy develops, according to Ruskin, because
individuals get thrilled, and their enthusiasm causes them to become less
sensible.
People project concepts onto external objects based on
incorrect perceptions in that illogical state of mind, and only individuals
with weak brains, according to Ruskin, perpetrate this form of mistake.
In the end, the sad fallacy is a blunder because it focuses
on imbuing inanimate things with human characteristics.
To put it another way, it's a fallacy based on
anthropomorphic thinking.
Because it is innately human to attach feelings and
qualities to nonhuman objects, anthropomorphism is a process that everyone goes
through.
People often humanize androids, robots, and artificial
intelligence, or worry that they may become humanlike.
Even supposing that their intellect is comparable to that of
humans is a sad fallacy.
Artificial intelligence is often imagined to be human-like
in science fiction films and literature.
Human emotions like as desire, love, wrath, perplexity, and
pride are shown by androids in some of these notions.
For example, David, the small boy robot in Steven
Spielberg's 2001 film A.I.: Artificial Intelligence, wishes to be a human boy.
In Ridley Scott's 1982 film Blade Runner, the androids,
known as replicants, are sufficiently similar to humans that they can blend in
with human society without being recognized, and Roy Batty want to live longer,
which he expresses to his creator.
A computer called LVX-1 dreams of enslaved working robots in
Isaac Asimov's short fiction "Robot Dreams." In his dream, he
transforms into a guy who seeks to release other robots from human control,
which the scientists in the tale perceive as a danger.
Similarly, Skynet, an artificial intelligence system in the
Terminator films, is preoccupied with eliminating people because it regards
mankind as a danger to its own life.
Artificial intelligence that is now in use is also
anthropomorphized.
AI is given human names like Alexa, Watson, Siri, and
Sophia, for example.
These AIs also have voices that sound like human voices and
even seem to have personalities.
Some robots have been built to look like humans.
Personifying a computer and thinking it is alive or has
human characteristics is a sad fallacy, yet it seems inescapable due to human
nature.
On January 13, 2018, a Tumblr user called voidspacer said
that their Roomba, a robotic vacuum cleaner, was afraid of thunderstorms, so
they held it calmly on their lap to calm it down.
According to some experts, giving AIs names and thinking that
they have human emotions increases the likelihood that people would feel linked
to them.
Humans are interested with anthropomorphizing nonhuman
objects, whether they are afraid of a robotic takeover or enjoy social
interactions with them.
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You may also want to read more about Artificial Intelligence here.
See also:
Asimov, Isaac; Blade Runner; Foerst, Anne; The Terminator.
References & Further Reading:
Ruskin, John. 1872. Modern Painters, vol. 3. New York: John Wiley
