‘I’d Rather Become the Technology’: Self- Preservation and the Dilemma of Trusting Technologies

Abstract

This paper argues that posthuman portrayals of technology as a means to solve humanity’s problems ultimately fail because the technology’s performance is unreliable. The artefact almost always fails the objectives prescribed and envisioned by the creator. From the golem to K in Blade Runner, there is always an ultimate release or betrayal in which the artefact strays from its operations, revealing a disconnect between the technology’s own intentionality and self-preservation and the developer’s objectives. The paper thus traces media representations of posthuman technologies and two real-life examples to argue that, given a lack of trust in a technological “other”, the cyborg exists as a way to retain human control while gaining the advantages afforded by technological augmentation. However, while arguing that humans are the more reliable technology, this paper does not revert to the romantic ideas postulated by phenomenological thinkers. Rather, by adopting the postphenomenological  concept of cyborg relations, the paper argues that the cyborg exists, not only as a critique of 20th-century dominion over women and a transhumanist ideal, but also as a natural consequence of trusting technology and the inevitable disappointment that follows.