The Changes

It is a well-known fact that humans do not accept change in any way, shape, or form. It's one of those things that literally brings us into this state of shock and confusion. Change for us is something so drastic and for some reason, whether the change be good or bad, we just can't seem to accept it. We come to get so comfortable with things being the way they are and having things be consistent when in reality we should know that things are bound to change at any given time and place. The world changes every single day, if you want to go more in depth with it the world changes every single minute of the day. Maybe that's why it all seems to scare us so much, knowing that everything could change in the span of a few seconds. We become so comfortable in the lives we live now that even the thought of something changing or coming or leaving makes us feel so uneasy. With all that being said, this leads to discussing the Black Mirror episode "Be Right Back". Martha lost her beloved Ash and as we know, losing someone close to you is already something very devastating, but also dealing with all the other aspects that came along with that made it even harder. Coping is different for everyone, and she took someone else's advice on how to cope with things and that's where it went downhill. The pain of losing Ash was already enough to deal with and then she got sucked back into the whole idea that Ash was still around by texting with him one last time, then again when she had that phone call with him, and she even took it to the next step with getting the A-I of Ash in her home. Not saying in any way that any of those methods of coping where wrong, but sometimes it's not what everyone needs. The text messages were an okay to just have a conversation that seemed real but deep down you knew it wasn't real. Having one last phone call with someone you've lost seems appealing mostly because you get to hear your loved ones voice one more time and then that's it. With the A-I, it becomes something more than just a memory, it's something so life-like that it seems real. Although it seems as if they were really there, they're made up of a collection of memories not experiences and that's what draws the line between the old and the new. Some people think that having a robot walking around who looks exactly like a human being is scary or odd, but it comes to show how far technology has come. It would still take people to be able to comprehend the difference between the real and the fake, but all in all, it doesn't seem so odd. In a sense, A-I's won't be able to react or have true emotions and experiences like human beings do. They might be able to understand and act out how they're supposed to feel rather than actually feeling. Martha grew attached to Ash #2 mostly because it gave her a sense of comfort, physically and emotionally but not completely mentally. She took the coping mechanism of the A-I way too serious instead of coping and getting rid of it. Which explains again as to how we're afraid of change. She lost Ash, replaced him with text messages and calls because she couldn't deal with the pain and even got an Ash #2 to deal with the pain as well. once it came down to getting rid of Ash #2, the sudden fear of change came back into the picture. The overall message didn't really seem to be dealing with what's real and what's not, to me it came to be more about why does a change like that become so odd and unsettling for some when there have been many other changes that are just as odd and we accepted them only because they didn't look and act like a human being.