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by Peter Mellow. ©
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We often talk to our machines when they don't do what we ask them to so. If your car won't start you initially give encouragement. But if it continues to not start, we soon get angry and abuse it. Do we really think that it hears us and starts because we are asking it to? Machines aren't the only things that get this treatment from us. Animals get the same behavior from us. Just because they have a nose, mouth, 2 eyes and ears we enjoy putting human faces onto these animals. A dog who is panting with their teeth bare is seen to be 'smiling' and happy.
Does your Mac have a personality? We definitely know that Macs have more of a 'personality' than PC computers. Or do we create the personality by adding what features we want to our Mac. Macs allow us the luxury to 'personalise' our Mac the way we want it to be. It can be as wacky or as 'normal' as we wish to make it. So if we are adding personality to our machine, do we also create a 'sex' for it?
Cars and ships have always been female. Where does that leave the modern computer? Do you have a name for your Mac? Is it male or female? Mac's contain a motherboard and a daughterboard! Is this an indication to their sex? Why not a Fatherboard or Sonboard? Is the computer industry sexist by nature? So many questions. And too few answers!
Do you use some form of Apple Speech with your Mac? If so, do you choose a male or female voice to answer your requests? What does this tell you about you? Do you want your Mac to be a certain sex? As progress marches on and we get closer to the artificial intelligence that we hope will come to our computers in the next few years, how will this intelligence communicate to us, what voice will be chosen?
This interesting area obviously needs some more thought and discussion, and could be the topic of an Internet discussion group in the future.