Social but not social. NOT our dinner last night. At least we talked to each other.

Last night Joseph and I were sitting around with a bunch of friends, aged probably from around 45 to 70 (and even some in her 20s), discussing all the technological changes that we’ve seen in our lifetimes, and how swiftly everything is changing, and how changes are taking place faster and faster.

It occurred to me that a lot of people below that age of 35 might never be able to sit together and just talk without technology getting involved. We all have smart phones, but we the Boomer and Gen X generations aren’t as attached to them. We can actually have a conversation without looking at our phones to check the status of our email or Facebook or Twitter or Snapchat or Instagram every few minutes. There’s something refreshing about that because I live in a world of media, and youngsters, with people who are constantly checking their phones for something or other.

It’s disconcerting to try to speak to someone when they’re actually only listening with one ear, or maybe a half an ear because they’re concentrating on receiving the “latest” message on a phone. It’s true: artificial intelligence is taking over (at least) our social relationships.

None of the folks last night had seen the movie “Her,” which I thought was a fascinating take on how humans are evolving. It’s about a rather isolated, lonely man (Joaquin Phoenix) who literally falls in love with his computer’s operating system (OS), voiced by Scarlett Johansson (we obviously never get a look at “her”).

The movie is very thought-provoking as well as fascinating because it literally shows how attachment to technology is changing the way our brains function and how true human interaction is being lost.

Think about what would happen if the electricity went off for an extended period of time…long enough so that you couldn’t connect to anyone via any network. What would you do? Obviously it would stop our economy cold. Everything is now run via computers, literally everything: transportation, banking, energy supplies, food supplies, information transmission, manufacturing. We’d be dead in the water. In terms of communication, what would happen if you couldn’t connect—at will—any time—with someone you are connected to most of your waking hours? What kind of real personal connections do you have now, anyway?

I’m surely not dissing technology, because if anything, I’m an early adapter and a serious user. But I always think about where I’d be on a personal level without my iPhone, my computer, my iPad, texting, etc. What would music be like? I just read a piece on Artificial Intelligence in creating jazz.Does that mean we’ll be able to replace human jazz musicians with machines? Wow.

Tell me it’s not true. Can we actually expect to find the soul in a machine?