Ash should not "Be Right Back"

The short film "Be Right Back" from Black Mirror portrays an idea of what the consequences would be if the world we live in allowed human beings to be recreated as a synthetic version of themselves after their death. The Ash replica was programmed to mimic the way in which he would have responded by analyzing almost anything that he had ever posted on the internet. By the technology used in this episode, it is apparent that the setting is meant to appear in a time where technology has advanced past what it is currently in 2017. Therefore, making the creation of robot Ash possible.

Martha's first attempt of reconnecting with Ash 2 was done through emails and phone calls, which does not cause as many issues that come with when the robot replica of him was created because she is not seeing a visual of him. She only hears his voice, which fills the emotional void in her life temporarily. Robot replica of Ash 2 was designed to look, act, and respond just as he would have before his death. It does not take long for Martha to realize that Ash 2 could never possibly come close to the original Ash. Martha craves what Ash 2 can simply not give her, which is Ash 1's physical imperfections (e.g., Ash's mole), his normal responses and reactions, and real emotions. After Martha realizes Ash 2 is too disturbing, she decides to return to the cliff on the country side to make him jump.

                                                                                

In the scene to the right, it was brought to the audience's attention that the cliff would play an important role later in the episode, because this is where initial Ash 2 tells Martha that anyone who has ever jumped off that cliff has done it  alone.

In the scene to the left, Martha tells Ash 2 to jump off the cliff, to which he unsurprisingly agrees to. Once he agrees, Martha points out that the original Ash would have been scared, crying, and would have never agreed to jump without argument. By saying this, she enables Ash 2 show the emotions the real Ash would have, because he has now been informed how the original Ash would have reacted. Ash 2 begins to cry and begs Martha not to make him jump, because he does not want to die. Him reacting this way makes it impossible for her to make him jump, because she would feel as she was making the original Ash jump and that would devastate her.



The technological idea of Ash 2 is not an absurd idea. Creepy, definitely. Absurd, no. My concern with these robots is that they are only bound to bring more pain to the person interacting with the synthetic recreation, because the robot will never be the real person it is programmed to mimic. It is and always will be a robot. The robot will never show real emotion, compassion, or love. If anything Martha should have only used the phone calls and emails as a source for closure with Ash due to his unexpected death, but she should not have continued the full on going relationship with Ash 2.