Uncanny Valley

The Uncanny Valley is a phenomenon when the more life like a robot is, the creepier it appears to people. In the short film, "Be Right Back", the widow begins talking to a simulation of her late husband and slowly progressed to her buying an android in his likeness. This film brought up a serious question about whether it is ethical to recreate someone after they have died and at what point people become something not human. If a robot was created that was learning and self aware I would not consider them human. Everything about the robot is artificial and is purely mechanical, but if a robot had a human brain and the robot was a replication of the person, I would consider it to be human because I believe the mind is what truly makes someone human. The mind is not something i think is too complex to be recreated perfectly which is why a I believe someone who is brain dead as someone who has lost their humanity. Though that would also raise the question if we were to come in contact with some other sentient beings similar to us, would we classify them as human or would we classify them as something different. I have not yet fully thought out my position on this issue, but it is something I have given a fair amount of consideration. I would like to hear any rebuttals or questions to challenge my stance because I know it is probably flawed and I would like to improve upon it.

In the movie the wife of the late Ash despises the idea of using a computer program to recreate her husband but when she finds out she is pregnant with Ash's child she hits her lowest. At first the program is a basic texting program that mimics his online personality, but as she becomes more dependent on the program and progresses into a more lifelike Ash simulation, she finds there are many small but noticeable flaws in the simulation of his personality. This slowly drives her to hate the android of Ash and push him out of her life into a very limited function in the attic. This is representative of the nature of the Uncanny Valley and raises the question whether it is ethical or not to essentially clone a dead person. I do not think it is ethical to bring someone back like that. Once someone dies if their consciousness cannot be revived then the person should just stay dead. It is very disrespectful to create someone to assume the identity of someone they are not. This was a very interesting topic to discuss and it could become very relevant to society with all of the technical progression we are making in these recent and in these upcoming years.