Anthropomorphizing our machines is a way of commenting on the kinds of jobs they do, but it's also a way for us to express trust in them—which, of course, has everything to do with our comfort level and nothing to do with a machine's effectiveness.
Your computer doesn't care if you call it Siri , or Hal , or Joe. But you might be more likely to ride in a driverless car if the vehicle seems cute in a vaguely pareidolic way. Giving something a human name is ultimately, then, a way of exerting control over it—a reminder that it works for you, that it exists within a human construct, even when the machine itself is wholly indifferent.
This is why we give human names to all sorts of things we can't control in nature—Hurricane Hugo and Jack Frost and "Tommy long legs," the popular nickname for the spiders many people now call "Daddy long legs. Machines don't need names, but we feel the need to name them—out of a mix of affection, perhaps, but mostly out of a desire to reorganize forces more powerful than we are so that they appear to be under human control. The more often we engage with other human minds, and the more deeply and successfully we read other humans intentions, the more socially intelligent we become.
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Scientists must strengthen our connections with the public to better ensure that accurate and modern insights into human behavior are used to inform decisions. Excerpts from the research of a few of the remarkable psychological scientists we said goodbye to this year.
APS priorities are echoed in the U. Please login with your APS account to comment. Related Society Needs Science—and Science Needs Society Scientists must strengthen our connections with the public to better ensure that accurate and modern insights into human behavior are used to inform decisions. In Their Own Words: Lives Lost in Excerpts from the research of a few of the remarkable psychological scientists we said goodbye to this year.
READ: Take a look inside the most haunted building in South Africa We might never know why naming our cars had become a thing or who the first person was to name their car. READ: Two wrongs unfortunately do not make a right This piqued Vic's interest as he has been naming all of his plants!
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