I think the concept of relationships with technology in a reciprocal way is inherently interesting. Blade Runner does an excellent job of capturing this, but it seems too far fetched and science fiction to really consider a possible reality at this point.

It's much more fun (and scary) to look at it right now. We have analytics, algorithms and the ability to talk and ask questions to our devices. We have advertisers targeting the core of our personalities and desires in order to better sell to us. We have Google watching our location and search history to deliver better results. All these things are technology forming relationships with us, not the other way around. I am not actively seeking out a better relationship with Google search results or targeted ads. They are seeking out a relationship with me.

It is not the relationship we typically think of when we hear the word relationship. It isn't friendship or romantic. It is like the relationships we learn about in biology class. It can be considered a mutual relationship in the sense that we both benefit - I get better search results, google gets money. But it can also be viewed as parasitic, especially those pesky targeted facebook ads, because I don't see myself benefitting. I don't want those ads period, targeted or not. Or I don't want better search results if that means I have to give up my gender, age, interests, etc.

It is becoming more and more obvious that we are not going to be the one's soley benefitting from this evolution of technology. We often imagined it would be the robots serving us, providing for us, etc. But we failed to really imagine a world where we would be serving the technologies and the corporations behind them. We aren't going to consider ourselves slaves because we will always consider ourselves superior and smarter. That is an inherently human trait. But we already are slaves. I can live in a world without Siri today. But can I tomorrow? Or in 10 years? When does she or similar service start to provide something that I personally find beneficial. 15 years ago I could've lived without search. But today I can't. Right now that search is Google because their results are superior. Why? Because the are sucking my information from me and delivering something I want in return. There is a reason that DuckDuckGo hasn't captured a larger audience. The targeted results Google delivers are better.

The possibilities for the robots serving humans has been explored time and time again. It will be very interesting to see how technology progresses and what kind of relationship our devices will have with us. And how humans will interpret and choose to look at that relationship.