why robot husbands are bad

“Be Right Back” raises more questions for me about the morality of human-AI interpersonal relations than anything else. Ash II reminds me of a child in several integral aspects of his “personality.” He doesn’t quite understand nuance, as is evident by his dialogue, such as his comments about being able to turn himself on or off sexually, misinterpreting Martha’s craving for intimacy from her late husband as something more transactional. Clearly there’s a learning curve for him, having never been exposed to human society, but there’s something about him feels distinctly human in this aspect. He responds to things like a child would with their parent. He displays both curiosity and an eagerness to please his guardian figure. His eagerness to please is perhaps purely due to his programming, but he makes a few comments throughout alluding to wants or preferences not innate to his machinery, i.e. not wanting to feel like a “lawn ornament.” Despite Martha’s clear desire for him to remain outside, he goes against this with his request to return indoors. If he existed simply for her pleasure, exclusively for her wishes, shouldn’t he have remained outside? To me, this suggests that part of Ash II is truly derivative of Ash I, or in other words, that something about Ash II is indistinguishable from the memories of Ash I it contains. Was Ash II mimicking whatever clever thing it believed Ash I would say, or did it ask to go inside because it believed Ash I would prefer being indoors? If this is the case, it makes me wonder how aware Ash II is of its own processes, and if it can distinguish its base self (or whatever sense of self an AI has) from the traits it inherited from Ash I? If this connection to Ash I is completely fluid, and Ash II isn’t consciously making these decisions but rather faithfully following his programming, how is that different from true human emotion or human motivation? The parallel of Ash II to a child is pertinent here as well, because Ash II is socialized much the same as a human child would be. He begins to learn nuance, emotional intelligence, and appropriate human behavior from continued interactions with Martha. If his entire existence serves to better mimic a true human, is there a point where some part of him approaches, or even becomes, a truly realized human, the way a child matures into an adult? And if part of it is human, or even simply an incredible imitation of a human, is it moral to allow Ash II or others like it to be mass manufactured purely for mass objectification? After all, put simplistically, a human brain is basically electrical impulses through conductive matter; if that’s what it means to be human, Ash II already fits the bill.