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Sunday, November 20, 2016

Has technology gone too far?!?

What makes a human “human”? A question that may seem weird to ask, but in this technological world, it is a fair question to ask. The technology of the world today is rapidly evolving. Things that we never thought could exist are being invented. However, has technology gone too far?

In the movie, “Be Right Back”, we see how technology can go too far. I don’t believe that people should use technology to mimic a person that is dead in order to not feel alone or find closure. I understand that when a loved one dies, a person may see the need to talk to that person again. On the other hand, I do not feel that technology is the way. Especially, making an exact replica of the dead person into a human-like robot. I say human-like and not human, because a robot will never be able to be a human. A robot, no matter how much feelings is put into it, will never be able to fully feel like a human. It can be thought how to feel, but its essence and soul will never be there. How can another person make a soul of something? He/she is not God. Even if there was such thing as being able to make a soul and put it into the robot, what good could that be? Emotionally, I feel like that would be catastrophic.


In the case of Martha trying to find closure by first e-mailing “Ash”, was the start to something terrible. She was basically pretending to talk to him, when deep down she knew that Ash was dead and that was only a robot. Then, when she decided to take the next step and get the phone calls, she made things even worse. Now, she was becoming more and more attached to this thing that was pretending to be her dead boyfriend. Of course, as humans, we have a sense of curiosity. But, like they say, curiosity killed the cat. Martha basically killed her chances of actually moving on when she decided to take this experiment to the next level. Despite, the astonishing replica, the voice, and digital memories that Ash 2 had, he would never be human. Why? He cannot think for himself and rationalize without the help of the digital information and what Martha told it. Therefore, it had no sense of self and no soul. It’s so sad to see in the end how Martha kept the robot. It’s sad because she was never able to move on. Plus, she brought her daughter into this. How sick is that? I feel like the daughter will never be able to have a semi-normal childhood with a robot pretending to be her dead father. I think this is bad on all the levels. That is why I feel like technology can and may go too far in the future. Things like this should not exist for the sake of a person’s humanity and emotional stability. This is not healthy for the world.

This is a video of the most uncanny valley videos. It is soo creppy!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IM82RzN0urI

2 comments:

Unknown said...

I totally agree with your sentiments. One thing that I found interesting in your analysis is how the creators of the humanoid cannot play God. It seems to me as if they are trying their hardest to do so by creating their own humans. Usually when people try to play God things go terribly wrong. That makes me wonder about all of the negative effects of replicating deceased loved ones.

Also, I think Martha's daughter knows that Ash 2 isn't her real father.

Anonymous said...

I agree with you Claudia. You can't make a replica of a person who already died, because when you feel like you don't have interest in that robot/duplicate, you won't have the strength to tell that person to die. Because you will feel guilty that the who just "came back to life" will die again.