Tecnologie e nuovi modelli di interazione sociale

In many contexts, the Covid-19 emergency implicated a forced modification of common daily activities. Work, education, free time, trade; in general, all socializing activities were severely limited, causing relational, behavioral and psychological imbalances of varying degrees. In response to this “new emergency”, the contribution is a critical essay concerning some technological advances in the fields of robotics, sensors and the development of artificial intelligence algorithms. These technologies today are so evolved that they can be able to "feed themselves" through interaction with humans and give them emotional signals. This landing is of paradigmatic importance because it opens up possible future scenarios in which technological apparatuses are no longer required only to act as “prostheses for communication between humans”, but to become themselves subjects of relationships. The result is a smart “new ecology”, capable of listening and understanding us, anticipating human behaviors and "smiling at us". These technologies, even more so after the various lockdowns imposed in different measures in different countries for the management of pandemic waves, are having controversial impacts in contemporary societies and present important open questions from the design, psychological, ethical, cultural and regulatory perspectives. We are faced with a new model of "technological interactions" which allows for the establishment, between humans and technologies, of emotionally interdependent interpersonal relationships. Hence, on the part of the culture of design, there is an urgency in understanding and driving its developments and the potential for dialogue and adoption in social practices, so accepting an idea of post-humanity that appears to be increasingly hybrid and inseparable from such conditions.