`In "Be Right Back", Martha becomes upset that Ash 2 doesn't real feel. He just follows his programming. It's understandable as to why this upsets her. The machine doesn't know real feeling. However, that raises the question what is real feeling? What are emotions, outside of set responses to specific stimuli? To say he learned emotion but did not feel is akin to saying the lighting flashed but there was no actual flash. The brain in and of itself is a computer. As small children, we are taught specific emotional responses.
Also, the movie makes an interesting point about grief. It can be seen in the movie that Martha's grief is what drives her to take part in the program. The program itself is a drug of sorts. It provides temporary relief but has a negative overall impact. Another parallel is that you're always going to want a little bit more. The perfect example is Martha's descent into the multiple facets of the program. It started off with just text conversations, but it culminated in her requesting a robotic replica of her lost loved one. It is the epitome of the slippery slope.
One point that was discussed today was the fact that it was unhealthy to introduce the small child to Ash at such a young age. However, I feel that was the best time to introduce her. She was young enough where she hadn't been overly influenced by the outside world. This allowed her to form an almost unbiased opinion. It's a common saying that children are the most honest people. However, the uncanny valley is an interesting phenomenon. It can be seen in children's aversions to things like wax replicas.
The uncanny valley plays a role in the human experience. It is the main reason for our fear of things like zombies and vampires. These are both things that appear extremely similar to humans but we know are not. This is what propagates our fear of them. This also applies to things like the gemonoids. The gemonoids are by-far the most unsettling things I've seen in a while. There movements, even subtle ones such as blinking, just seemed unnatural. I also can't help thinking about the Terminator series. The gemonoids feel like a tempting of the fates. The gemonoids and the A.I. we're moving towards could bring upon us an "I, Robot" situation. We should also be worried about AI's taking on personas similar to the ones humanity has flooded the internet with. The Tay A.I. is a prime example. After less than 24 hours on twitter, Tay was a misogynistic racist. Upon further research, I found if you pm'd her with a specific phrase, she would repeat that phrase without saying the original sender. However, that means somebody still had to say it and was comfortable putting it out there into the world.
One question that always arises when I watch those movies is," If we know we are our own biggest threat, why don't we work to change it?" If the films are so groundbreaking, why don't they have an noticeable effect on the people running the government? We have identified our problems but the changes we need are not being made.
2 comments:
Interesting analysis. I think it's important to note that children around the age of Martha's daughter are still in the process of discovering what "reality" is. The fact that Martha introduced her to Ash2 so early in life does indicate that the daughter will grow up with less of an aversion to similar robots. With respect to what you said about A.I. we're moving towards developing, I think that as the generations pass, the new young people grow more accustomed to these things, so we don't see much of a problem with it. After all, we have phone software now that can respond to our questions, and we find very little to be strange about that.
I agree with your concern with the ability for the robots to learn how to react to emotions. There is a noticeable difference in people faking a smile and people not faking. A robot, however, would take out the ability as humans for us to be able to distinguish. I do agree that it was appropriate to introduce the child to Ash, her father. My only concern would be the manner in which he was introduced. If Martha introduced Ash2 as her father, that would be wrong. The child would only know what her father was like on the internet a decade ago. However, if she introduced Ash2 as a replica of her father from ten years ago, then I would be okay with that. I think the biggest concern is how they present the situation. If they do it as though Ash2 is her real father, the child will grow up wondering why her father stays in the attic and never plays with her.
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