The scenes where Martha tells robot Ash that "that's not how Ash would act", would then be false in a sense. Ash really does act like that, just not around her. Because robot Ash is the perfect collection of data on the online human Ash, he really is a part of the "real" Ash. I thought this part was pretty cool because it could be taken such that if we remove the physical "robot" sense robot Ash, you still have Ash how he was online. Martha is grieving by communicating with the part of the "real" Ash that was saved online. To me, this is the same as trying to remember a loved one through old photos or videos of when the person was still alive. So when Martha put robot Ash up in the Attic, I found it kinda more funny than I did creepy because she literally treats this part of Ash the same way we would treat a mere photo of a loved one. We grieve over them, and when that is over, we store them away in the back of our minds.
Friday, April 1, 2016
Be Right Back: What Does it Mean to be You?
I have chosen to write about the video "Be Right Back" and how it relates to to being who you are. In the video, Ash (the robot) is created from the online data collected of the human Ash. However, Ash the robot does not act how the human Ash did when he was alive. The human Ash was constantly interested in social media, with his nose practically buried in his phone most of the time. The robot Ash then used all the data collected online to act like the human Ash. This originally made me think, "This robot is obviously fake because it just collects data on how a person acts online, not how they really act". People, in my experience, often act differently online than they do in real life. But does this mean that how they act online is not the real them? I feel as though people can act as they truly want to online or at least more so than they would in real life. I have been refraining from calling the human Ash real for this very reason. To me, neither Ash portrayed is truly the "real" Ash. The "real" Ash would be the person that is a combination of both online presence as well as the human Ash.
The scenes where Martha tells robot Ash that "that's not how Ash would act", would then be false in a sense. Ash really does act like that, just not around her. Because robot Ash is the perfect collection of data on the online human Ash, he really is a part of the "real" Ash. I thought this part was pretty cool because it could be taken such that if we remove the physical "robot" sense robot Ash, you still have Ash how he was online. Martha is grieving by communicating with the part of the "real" Ash that was saved online. To me, this is the same as trying to remember a loved one through old photos or videos of when the person was still alive. So when Martha put robot Ash up in the Attic, I found it kinda more funny than I did creepy because she literally treats this part of Ash the same way we would treat a mere photo of a loved one. We grieve over them, and when that is over, we store them away in the back of our minds.
The scenes where Martha tells robot Ash that "that's not how Ash would act", would then be false in a sense. Ash really does act like that, just not around her. Because robot Ash is the perfect collection of data on the online human Ash, he really is a part of the "real" Ash. I thought this part was pretty cool because it could be taken such that if we remove the physical "robot" sense robot Ash, you still have Ash how he was online. Martha is grieving by communicating with the part of the "real" Ash that was saved online. To me, this is the same as trying to remember a loved one through old photos or videos of when the person was still alive. So when Martha put robot Ash up in the Attic, I found it kinda more funny than I did creepy because she literally treats this part of Ash the same way we would treat a mere photo of a loved one. We grieve over them, and when that is over, we store them away in the back of our minds.
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3 comments:
Besides to reconnect with her husband, I believe Martha was unsure of what exactly she wanted. I say that because she eventually realized that the duplication of Ash lacked human qualities. Therefore, the online information used by duplicated Ash was unsatisfactory when he communicated with Martha. It's like Ash 1 and Ash 2 were intended to be the same person, but they acted in different manners just as you said.
Loved your post! It's almost ironic that the robot Ash acted more human than the real one. Ash 1 was so addicted to technology that he unknowingly agreed to eat soup out of a shoe. Ash 2 however, had no desire to waste his time exploring social media and finding ways to make internet friends laugh. His one and only purpose was to replicate a human being, and in doing so unknowingly acted more life like than his deceased counter part. We also had similar points in our posts to avoid calling Ash 2 anything but human by means of referring to him as the robot or it. The one place we differ is that when the robot acted out of place by doing something that Ash 1 wouldn't have, I said he wasn't acting as Ash or an artificially intelligent unit. In my post, I stated that he simply used the algorithms designed to interpret the situations as best as he could, but failed due to the fact that it isn't fathomable to understand every single tiny mannerism a person can have based on SMS messaging and social media. The most interesting part of your post was the spot on analogy you made between placing Ash 2 in the attic like you would place the photo of a loved one on the wall; although more like one of those talking paintings from Harry Potter! Good work!!
An excellent observation regarding the totality of Ash1's personality being the sum of his online and in-person presences. Perhaps this is a large portion of why Martha became disinclined towards Ash2: she only engaged with him in real life, if infrequently visiting his social media/personal email files. She had grown used to the "human" side of Ash1; the Ash he was when he was offline. Ash2, meanwhile, is comprised wholly from Ash1's online persona, with which she was largely unfamiliar. As it is that "We tend to only keep flattering pictures," we also tend to only present certain aspects of our personality with our online presence. For the majority of us, this is very similar to how we interact in-person, but somewhat exaggerated. I for one tend to use larger and more complex sentences online, taking advantage of both the lack of time restraints and the ability to proofread my statements before making them. The words I choose are generally a part of my daily vernacular, but the way in which they're delivered is not the same as it would be were I speaking. It's perhaps this disconnect, the recognition of familiar elements and noticing their misuse that drove Martha to become disenchanted with Ash2.
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