It's Not Human, It's Something Else

The conclusion in “Be Right Back” ended quietly where “Ash” was not force to jump off the cliff, but to be secluded alone in the attic in house. A fitting end for machine with a human appearance, that one could say.  However, somewhere from my heart, a sense of pity aroused after seeing that ending. Why pity for a machine that only looked and acted like a human, especially a copy of a real decease person? An understanding question for some that my asked, but true that Ash is not a human, but he has the “essence” that is share with humans. By what I meant by essence, I meant a sentient being.

A sense an empathy might be the reason why I think “Ash” is a sentient being, but he has demonstrated what a sentient being does. We both know the “Ash” is not actually the same as the human Ash, but an artificial intelligence with a copy of his personality. However, the personality might be a copy, but “Ash” doesn’t just mimic its, he learns it. Mimicking and learning is what makes it different for “Ash”.  “Ash” learns how the real Ash would do and say base off his social media posts and videos. He learns his speech patterns and his mannerisms and he recreates them his own way. Similar as for us humans, we are not born with a personality, but learned it from others and recreate them. We combine things what we learned with our experiences when using them. This applies for “Ash” too when he learns to act more like the real Ash from trial and error. He improves by learning and gathering more information.

“Ash” can be consider as a self-aware being who can think for himself. He understands his facticity of an android replica of Ash. He knows what his own existence is, something a sentient being would understand. He is aware what is going on around him, but doesn’t fully understanding how to respond to new situations. “Ash” knows what emotions are but doesn’t know when to use them until he learns. We learn emotions through experiences in many different scenarios in our lifetime and “Ash” is doing the same thing. He was taught fear of jumping off a cliff, and before that, he was going to jump off because he didn’t how to respond in that scenario. Sure it would make sense because he isn’t a human so he doesn’t have the biological feel of death, but he knows of it. He knows that normal humans would feel fear. However, when told that the real Ash would show fear in this scenario, “Ash” re-corrected himself with this information and further his understanding.

            “Ash” is not human so we can’t expect him to act like a normal human person would do, but he is sentient enough to know who he is, ask questions, and learn through experiences.