Martha Tried to Murder "Ash"

“Be Right Back”, another episode from the Black Mirror series, follows a young woman named Martha and her struggles through the death of her lover, Ash. Though the two are undoubtedly in love with one another, there is a level of disconnect between the two— much of Ash’s waking life is spent social networking instead of socializing. Even so, Martha is torn apart when she finds out Ash has died in a car crash (most likely from texting and driving as the episode suggests in the first few minutes when Martha warns him about texting while driving). Seeing her grief, a friend signs her up for a service that generates an AI (Artificial Intelligence) from any and all forms of social media (messages, posts, videos, pictures, etc.) that the user supplies it with. The AI service possesses three levels— messaging, phone calls, and a physical “android” replication. When her friend informs her that she has signed Martha up, Martha initially expresses disgust to the idea. However, perhaps unfortunately, Martha eventually warms up to the service and progresses to the final level— a synthetic recreation of Ash. The synthetic Ash (I’ll call him “Ash 2”) looks hauntingly similar to the original Ash— save for missing facial hair and a mole on his chest. However, though Ash 2 is created from Ash’s digital life, his personality is quite dissimilar from the original Ash— the episode shows several instances where Martha has to correct/ reprimand him for doing things that Ash himself would not do. From these differences (and because the original Ash is dead, obviously), it is safe to conclude that Ash 2 is, in fact, not Ash. However, I don’t find it mad to say that Ash 2 is, for all intents and purposes, a person.

If I were to quickly define what a “person” is, I think it would be fair to define a person as:

• An entity that possesses a consciousness with the capacity to perceive, think, and feel
• An entity that is conscious of its own existence
• An entity that is aware of the existence of other (apparent) consciousness

With these criteria in mind, it could be argued that Ash 2 possesses, on some level, all of these qualities. On several occasions he has shown the ability to perceive, think, and, at the very least, emulate feelings. He could also be aware that he exists: this is evidenced when he first steps out of the bathroom and asks for clothes because he is naked. He also seems to know that other people exist: he is capable of communicating with Martha (and later her daughter) and is constantly trying to please her (be like Ash). I use words like “could” and “seems to” to illustrate a point that we, as human beings, cannot truly know if anyone else is a sentient being— we can only assume that they are sentient because they exhibit signs that they are. If they appear to be conscious, if they appear to perceive, and if they appear to feel, then it is natural to assume that they are indeed a person. Since we can only base this “person-ism” on outward stimuli, then we must give any thing that exhibits these qualities the same rights, respects, and treatments we would give any other “person”. Therefore when Martha, in a fit of emotional instability, leads Ash 2 to a cliff and commands him to jump off of it, one could say that the act would be akin to murder: knowing that Ash 2 will most likely obey her wishes, she is intentionally forcing someone who appears to be a person to kill themselves. It would be the same as ordering a child or perhaps a maddened lover to jump off of a cliff— if a person is likely to do as they are told and someone orders them to kill themselves, then that someone who issued out the order should face the same charges as a murderer.

All this being said, even if Ash 2 really is just a shell of a person and cannot experience anything subjectively, there is no way anyone could know this for certain. Because of this uncertainty, we have a moral obligation to protect the rights and freedoms of anyone who convincingly exhibits these qualities. However, these entities would also have to inherit the same rules and punishments— if Ash 2 were to kill someone, he would have to face the exact same punishments anyone else would experience. In other words, since Ash 2 seems to be a person, we must assume that he is a person.