"Be Right Back" Or Are They Already Here?

 “Be Right Back” is yet another creepy addition to the Black Mirror series that focuses on technologic advances and their usually devastating effects on the human population.  This particular episode revolves around a woman, Martha, who loses her husband shortly after the young couple moves in together. Martha is devastated by the loss of Ash and her sadness is what ends up driving her to take part in this service that allows her to talk to her deceased husband. Dark magic, right? Not at all, in fact, it only takes a few minutes of some software to scan public posts Ash made on social media when he was alive and some videos to make a replica of him in the form of a texting app that she can chat with anytime she likes. 

Now, losing someone close to you is hard.  A friend, a family member, even your childhood pet that your parents told you just "ran away" is a loss that hurts and still hurts even years later. Grieving is a process and some tackle it better than others, but eventually, we accept that the person who passed is never coming back and we have to move on with our lives. Now, imagine seeing your grandmother be buried and then later after the funeral you whip out your iPad and you're chatting with her. How exactly does that work?

You obviously understand poor old Nan is gone, but you're talking to her right now. She's using the same lingo she used when she was alive, made the same jokes, made the same spelling errors. How are you supposed to accept that she's dead?

Martha used the app and she got too invested. She obviously understood there was a huge difference between the Ash she had fallen in love with and the app but you can see her descent into pure confusion. When she dropped her phone after trying to listen to a sound recording of an ultrasound and she couldn't speak to Ash App because of a malfunction she had a panic attack. She flew to the store to get a new phone and you could see the apprehension on her face as she waited to see if the App was going to work correctly and Ash App's voice could be heard. That's the moment where you could see she had latched onto this falsity as if it were the real thing and not just a computer program. 

This is a scary thing and even scarier when you realize how close we are to making it a reality. 

Black Mirror: Be Right Back

The main thing people might debate after watching Be Right Back, which is an episode on a Netflix series called Black Mirror, is when can an android no longer be considered and android? After watching the episode, it seems that people have mixed motions about the matter. The story line of course has a lot to do with the question on whether androids should be allowed to look that human like. It all starts when the two characters: Martha and Ash (1), move to a rural house, which seems to be Ash’s deceased mother. Right away you can tell that Ash (1) and Martha are of course happy, but Ash (1) seems to spend most of his time on his smartphone; not paying much attention to his wife. After just one day of being in the house, which I believe their going to fix up to start a family in, Ash (1) goes into town to return a rental van and get their car back. Martha being an artist and having a deadline for work, stays home and sends Ash (1) out all by himself even though Ash (1) asked her a couple times to go with him. After many hours pass and Ash (1) is not home Martha knows that something is wrong, which it is. Martha comes to find that Ash (1) has died in a car crash, and when she hears the news she begins to mourn his death. At the funeral a lady that knows Martha, tells her that there is a new app where you can text deceased people. At first Martha denies it and does not want any part in such things, but that all changes when she finds out that she is pregnant. She immediately goes to the app and starts texting Ash (2) (she had been singed up to the app by her friend by the way) because she has no one to talk to. Martha begins to get attached to Ash (2) and starts calling him on the phone every day. Ash (2) then tells her that there is an experimental side to the app, in which she can order and android that would look just like Ash (1) and be like Ash (1). Martha is hesitant at first but goes on to ordering the android. After the android has been all set up, Martha is afraid of it because it looks so much like Ash (1) but being the first night seeing Ash again or at least something that looks like him, she gets drunk and becomes intimate with Ash (2). After a couple days she realizes that Ash (2) is not enough like Ash (1) so she decides to get rid of it. To her getting rid of Ash (2) is creepy because she just puts him/it in the attic. After watching the episode I understand why people would want an exact android of someone they miss, but it comes down to a point where you can ask yourself: have we gone to far with technology?    

The Uncanny Valley

Artificial intelligence is the theory and development of computer systems able to perform tasks that normally require human intelligence, such as visual perception, speech recognition, decision- making, and translation between languages.

The uncanny valley is a hypothesized relationship between the degree off an objects resemblance to a human being and a human’s response to that object. The response is uncanny because it appears strangely familiar. But what makes it appear strange or cause you to feel uncomfortable? It is learned. The “Uncanny Valley” is an example of how learned behavior has affected our views of Artificial Intelligence. We did not just wake up one morning and decide that robots were creepy. These views have been brought upon us from others in our lives, the internet, social media, and movies. For example, children of younger ages are in most cases, less likely to feel creeped out by human like androids because this fear has yet to be introduced to them. This suggests that our sense of the “Uncanny Valley” is a learned behavior, not something that is innate. Those that have been introduced to the rebellious robots might feel that the robots have their own distinct mind or that a software might become self-aware. For instance, I recently watched one of the many Terminator movies title Terminator 2: Judgement day. Just from watching this movie and some of the traumatizing events caused during it, I felt a lot less lenient towards artificial intelligence. In the movie, the software became self-aware and began to, that easily, turn against the human race. Another example is the self-driving Uber car incident. Every incident that we hear about makes us a little more judgmental about artificial intelligence.

But, I personally feel that we as humans can be pretty biased towards artificial intelligence. We only like it up until a certain point in which it benefits us or in other words once it has reached the Uncanny Valley. We are definitely not against advances in technology but feel that certain advances have gone too far or become disturbing. It could be the possibility that at some point we might not be able to tell the difference. When compared to the episode of Be Right Back, Ash 2 looked pretty much identical to Ash 1. I think that is pretty scary and unhealthy way to deal with grief especially if that type of technically were to get into the wrong hands.

White Bear: What is right? What is wrong?

In my perspective, I found the film White Bear to be extremely disturbing. My real question is, what exactly was disturbing about it? The fact that the woman contributed to such a horrifying crime? Or, the way that society is punishing her for committing that crime? Or, the people who enjoyed being a part of someone getting tortured? And how would you defend your statement?

Is it fair to continuously torture a person, even if they did such a horrible thing to a little girl? Or, was there a better way that the situation could have been handled, such as lock her up in jail for the rest of her life?

In my honest opinion, I feel like torturing the woman was honestly fair. I know, I may sound heartless to some of you that think otherwise, but what about the little and innocent girl who did absolutely nothing to deserve this? She didn't know what was coming to her... and I am sure that she didn't know how to defend herself either. What does that say about us if we were to defend or say that she doesn't deserve to feel the same torture, and maybe not even close to the same amount of torture that the little girl went through?

On another note, I think that the people who enjoyed being a part of that woman being tortured were a bit ignorant for it. I would like to know what you guys think their reason/reasons were for participating in this? Was it to get back at her? Was it to stand up for the little girl?

I believe they did it, because they would want someone to do the same if it was their child. Also, they don't really torture the woman, they're just honest with her by calling her a murderer and telling her to go to hell for her crime. The worst thing that I recall some of them doing was throwing something that splashed red to the clear box thing she was in.

In regard to her committing the crime, I feel that some people may argue about her not actually being the person who committed the crime, considering the fact that she told the judge that her fiance pressured her into doing so, as well as was put under his spell, but that doesn't void the fact that she was still an accomplice. She filmed the little girl being tortured by her fiance for his amusement. That is literately telling us that she allowed for the little girl to be tortured. She could have stopped it, she could have done something about it, she could have told somebody, but instead she decided to film a little girl being wrapped in a bag, thrown into the forest, and burned. Her fiance got away with it by killing himself, but what about her? She doesn't deserve to get any special treatment nor sympathy even if she was pressured into filming. There's always something you can do about things like this, and she choose to do the wrong thing by not finding a way to avoid this disturbing crime.

Be Right Back, Where does Martha cross the line?

In Black Mirror's episode, Be Right Back, we are taken through the grieving process of Martha after losing her husband to a car accident. At the funeral one of Martha's friends suggests she signs up for a program that will allow her to communicate with an artificial intelligence that will resemble her deceased husband, to help her with the grieving process. At first, Martha is hesitant to give the service a shot but once she tests the waters and finds that she finds comfort in this artificial intelligence, she goes all out and pays for the highest capacity that the software can provide, and buys a robot identical to her husband, Ash. What I want to know is where do people think they would draw the line as to how weird, abnormal, creepy or unhealthy the software gets. The service's goal is to achieve ultimate resemblance to your lost loved ones by gathering all the information they have left through any means of technology and internet. In my opinion, even allowing the software access to any existing information of whom you've lost just to be able to communicate with them via-message, is absurd. Psychologists state that there are stages of grief that one must go through to achieve peace with the loss of a loved one. But in my opinion, how could Martha possibly move on with her life if she keeps attempting to feel as if Ash never died and that he is still around. For me, downloading the software and trying it out is where I would draw the line. I don't think it is healthy for someone to settle for AI that mimics someone whom you cared about so deeply. Don't get me wrong, I can see why anyone could easily begin to obsess over this type of technology, because who wouldn't want the pain to simmer for just a minute and have access of communications with someone whom you never thought you would ever talk to, hear or see again. After this, Martha continues to provide more and more of Ash's life to the software which proceeds to the ability to speak to "Ash" through the phone, letting "Ash" see what she can see through camera, and even duplicating Ash's body and bringing his physical aspects back to life. To me everything about the software is unhealthy and creepy because Ash is dead and if God, the universe, or whatever you believe in wanted "Ash's" presence impacting the living world, he wouldn't of died to begin with. I have provided a link for more information about the stages of loss and grieve: So where do you think you would draw the line? Or how many of you are already hiding your robots in the attic?

Dylan's Thoughts About Robots

My awesome thoughts about robots/androids are pretty simple, not much to them at all. We should limit the development of how much they can do. There are some good reasons to have robots. They can be effective to the business world. In cutting down production time on certain objects. They would be capable of doing the task as good as humans and probably a shorter amount of time. Or like the vacuum we always take about. The use for it is practical. I will never see the point of like a ash2 or anything like that plus there will always be flaws with. There is only so many situations it can know and know how to react to. plus there is the ability they have of learning and having and actually having a take over which i think is a real thing that robots could do. Like the kid talked about the robots talking to each other today. When he said the robot said "they don't know we are here yet." If we give them the capability to learn who know what they could possibly do.

Also I wanted to talk about the what the girl in the corner said about robots having emotions and and being considered slaves if they had emotions and we used them for our own personal use. I don't believe thats true at all. I don't think robots can have emotions no matter what someone says to me. They are just computers noting more nothing less. What i was saying earlier though about limiting the capability of robots. They should have limits on what they can do. They should have one sole purpose nothing more and nothing less. Giving them the ability to learn can lead to disastrous things to the human race as a whole. Like you said with googles android twitter account. They shut it off after it became a bad thing to do. Then somehow turned itself back on and tweeted again. Robots that have the capability to learn and grow its knowledge bank has no place here. It can slowly figure out how to hack computers and become better then humans at it. Then is could leave humans in a place they shouldn't have to be in. Like i understand robot enthusiast wanting to see how far they can go with the capabilities of a robot. If i was a president i would make a Law around the development of them. A good fictional example of this would be irobot. The "highly intelligent robots" are in charge. Thats what it could lead to if they are given the right powers

Episode Reflection- Callie Strini

The Be Right Back Black Mirror episode was certainly interesting. What are my thoughts exactly on this episode? Well, I'm not even sure if I know myself. The episode begins depicting a young happy couple living what seems to be a normal life; later, the husband wakes up to drive their rental car back to where it belongs, and never returns. The brokenhearted widow finds out she is pregnant, and her depression worsens. Her friend tells her about a new technological advance that can trace all her husbands social media accounts and allow her to communicate with him through a chat or phone call. Although at first hesitant, the widow finally decides to chat her dead husband, Ash. She becomes familiar with this device and seems to be enjoying talking to his activated voice everyday. The voice tells her she can kick it up a notch and explains how she can have a body put together that looks just like him; she agrees and activates his body( This is when the episode became more eerie). The new Ash sounds and looks like the old Ash, but you can tell something is missing, the android acts sort of robotic and monotone. She soon becomes upset because she realizes the android is like the old Ash, but does not have him all there, like some specific gestures and thoughts he would have. She tries to get him to jump off of a, but is not strong enough to go through with it. The episode jumps farther into the future and in conclusion we see that she hides him in her attack, only letting her daughter see him on the weekends. At first this episode troubled me greatly, and I thought the idea of bringing alive an android to represent someone who had deceased was wrong and would never happen; however, after discussing the episode in class, I realized this may not be as crazy as it sounds. As Dr. J stated, a hundred years ago, people probably thought the idea of hearing another person through phone/machine was weird and unlikely, maybe even scary. Now we can relate this to our present situation, while we sit here and think about how creepy it would be to have a robotic technology represent someone in our lives who had died, this could be the norm for us in the future. Personally, I believe if this ever became reality, I would not activate or bring back someone from the dead in the form of an android. I believe we go through hardships and deaths in life for a reason, and part of that reason is to become mentally stronger human beings, therefore, I would not bring back someone I knew in the form of an android, because it seems it would make moving on more difficult. What are your thoughts about this episode, and if you had to bring back someone in this way, would you? 

Black Mirror "Be Right Back"

Martha and Ash had both just moved into their new place when Ash suddenly passed away. Martha's friend Naomi signs her up for this site in which she gives it Ash's online information. Once it has his information the site is able to "talk" to Martha as if it were the original Ash. At first she is only able to email him then she can speak with him through the phone and finally she is able to bring him to life through a robot. The thing with this new Ash is that he is only as much of Ash(1) as what there is of Ash(1) left behind, such as how he expressed himself through social media, videos of him, and memories that Martha has. Because Ash(2) is constantly learning new things about Ash(1) he is sort of like a child in the sense that he is learning what responses are appropriate. Ash(2) is also dependent of the of Martha who is the person who brought him to life. I think in a way Ash(2) could learn enough to the point that he is almost identical to Ash(1) but at the same I don't think that it would be enough. He doesn't age, sleep, eat, get sick, have random moments in personality like a person would. If anything Ash(2) would at best be a whole other person with new and different experiences. So there is no knowing if the way that Ash(2) responds to these new experiences is the same way that Ash(1) would have responded if he were still alive. So at this point Ash(2) could react as a whole different person or stay at the same place personality wise because that is where Ash(1) last left of. Another issue is if Martha ever truly recovered because I think at first she defiantly saw this as an opportunity to help her grieve but we don't know if she the end of her grieving process. Or maybe she did and that why she put him in the attic. Just like someone who initially clings onto items  and memories of a loved one who just passed away but they eventually starts letting go. They visit the items and the memories less and less until those things are put away only to be visited on few occasions. I think towards the end she realized that Ash(2) can't ever be Ash(1) and I do think that she did get over it at least in the way that most people do. I don't think that this method of grieving would work for everyone but at the same time most things don't work the same for everyone.

Arisen from the dead.

"Be Right Back" is a commentary on the ways technology can affect the grieving process. But it also shows that their is no such thing as sacred space on the internet and that technology is as addictive as any drug in production. Martha had a near panic attack when she dropped her phone after the ultrasound. She shut her own sister out to talk to an AI that was supposed to represent Ash. She became addicted to the same thing that she would be abandoned by Ash for. The problem that Martha soon realized is that when she "brought Ash from the dead", he was not Ash. He was bits and pieces, but not the real thin. He had no unique personality, could not act beyond his parameters, and did not really think for himself, just on what Ash uploaded. In some form, he was a zombie. He was not what Ash was. A shell of his former self. Yet, Martha was so obsessed with this thing that reminded her of who she actually loved, she could break away from it. So she kept it, just to keep the addiction alive. Much like addicts cannot go away because they are too weak without it, Martha couldn't handle being without Ash, and pictures and voice recordings were not enough. She needed something physical to hold and see. So she keep him in the attic. Symbolic considering that Ash's mother kept the pictures of his dead father in the attic. She only wanted to see him when she wanted to. He just stared at the walls all day, because that was his order. He wasn't a human, he was a slave. This was a perfect example of how robots are not always the best alternative to solving problems. It can be nothing more than what it was designed to do. It has no consciousness. It has no free will. It was about to jump off a cliff because he was instructed to.  Human consciousness is a beautiful thing. It drives the world forward. Without it, we could not possibly have progressed to the point of arguing about the practicality of robots. Robots wouldn't exist with human freedom. So for this purpose, just let the grieving process take place and don't try to bring them from  the dead.

The Not So Uncanny Valley: Be Right Back

It is true that there are people who are willing to do anything to bring back a loved one no matter the cost (even if it means “ resurrecting” your dead boyfriend). In the Netflix original series Black Mirror, technology has always played a significant role in the show and would always bear heavy consequences as each story unfolds. The episode in particular, “ Be Right Back” focuses on a young couple, Martha and Ash, who are moving a cottage out in the country. Unfortunately, Ash dies shortly as the episode begins, and we now are left with a grieving, pregnant woman left all alone. During the funeral, one of her friends recommends a program that would be able to make a “copy” of anyone so that it would be like that person never disappeared. Initially, Martha was uncomfortable about the whole thing entirely, but she gradually gave into the idea. At this point, she’s texting and talking to this new Ash as if it were really him. She eventually reaches the point where she even orders an android that would look, sound, and even feel like the old Ash. This eventually leaves the question of whether or not if this reaches The Uncanny Valley territory.

The differences between Ash and Neo-Ash were evident from the get-go. When he first began communicating with her, he seemed to be exactly like Ash, but come the android, that’s when I knew things were off. He seemed like nothing more than a superficial, ideal version of Ash rather than the distant, somber original. Although Martha found it a bit creepy, I personally think that it’s not, if it can be seen from a different angle. Based on what Neo-Ash has said, the features on his body are 2-D and texture mapping. He’s basically a projection of the old Ash who, in time, might even evolve into someone else as he learns new things. He doesn’t even have some of the same personality traits the first Ash displayed outside of his social media accounts. If she knew the full extent of what the android could do, then she probably would have gone about things differently. It’s already known that the android goes based on Ash put online, so the fact that the android would not be the exact thing isn’t shocking. It’s just a portrayal of someone she loved, and she looked past that. Say if one of my parents died, and I wanted to have a chance to see them once again. If I were to buy an android knowing that that parent is dead, then I’m buying it for the sake of sentiment, not to replace whoever died.

I am aware of the various concerns of whether or not if these androids would evolve to the point of them taking over, but that is dependent on how far humans are willing to go to make that happen. In a British sci-fi series called HUMANS, androids were capable of doing anything that a human could do. However, whatever it is that they do, they must be under the command of a human. There are some androids who became sentient thanks to the creator. Some were friendly while some...were not. All they wanted was to be treated like an actual human being. If something like this were to happen, then I’d be a little worried. However, with the case of Ash and Neo-Ash, it’s all a matter of perspective.

Intelligent beings

I have found the whole ash one vs. Ash two situation to be extremely creepy. I get it can be some people's way of grieving but overall I think it's creepy. The fact that ash two can pass for ash one is both mind-blowing and horrifying. I personally think that humanoids and such will one day take over the world, and ash two is a huge jump into that reality. The overall problem is its self-learning capabilities that can make the humanoid unpredictable. This unforeseeable behavior could give rise to a robot revolution.

I think that when dealing with anything new that the actual capabilities are more than what is anticipated by the creator. Especially with A.I. the capabilities can be unimaginably vast because of the intelligence and the learning capability. With what they learn they will be able to blend in with humanity gradually until it takes thorough examinations. Even though the appearance and actions noticeably differ now in the future they maybe won't.

I think that the uncanny value played a part in the Ash one vs. Ash two situation. This somewhat explains why Ash two was disturbing because he looked too much like a human to not be a human. It also brings back the nightmare of A.I taking over the world. Humans are just at the beginning of A.I. creations and make very distinctive differences and for now I rely on those distinctions to go to sleep at night. The distinctions include but not limited to stiff movements, monotonous voices, and lifeless expressions. I think the intelligence will only understand logic and not human reason from the emotion humans project in the world. I think that the lifeless look emphasizes their lack of humanity. I also think that the more humans humanize them the more humans will have to dehumanize them until we're not distinctively different or they can't be humanized farther. 

The episode be right back reminded me of a movie called Artificial Intelligence that was about this woman replacing her son, who was in a coma, with an A.I. Long story short she loved him as a son for a while then her son came back and she stop liking the A.I. she got and she left him. One of the main points I wanted to discuss was that in both these instances the women got temporary solutions that became problems and that can actually be permanent. Robots and machines can survive longer than humans if you call their existing living or surviving.

Human or Robot?

Although the idea of inventing robots to perform certain tasks can be beneficial, I do not think that robots should take on the identity of humans. Robots can be useful when performing certain jobs or when they are developed to keep some people company. However, creating robots to be humans poses many problems. When Ash number 2 was created in a sense it eliminated the value of Ash number 1's life. To me this development will diminish the importance of relationships because we are no longer scared to lose someone. Everyone could have their mom or dad in their attic. So, people become easily replaceable. Yes, this could help someone grief; however I consider this selfish. Creating a similar person to one you lost will eventually not be enough just as we saw in the film. Is it fair to continue someones life in a sense just because you are not ready for them to go? What happens when the dead person does not want this to occur, so they try to prevent it before they die, but cannot do anything because it is public information. Would we consider this denying someone of their unique humanity?
Also, the moment that second Ash (or second anyone) starts having their own experiences they are no longer the person who they are clones of. Although they can be programmed for certain things if they begin to have their own consciousness how can we stop them from developing their own personalities. If they do develop further consciousness then we are forced to recognize them as humans, and if we do not recognize them as people we may be holding them slaves. I also think that making robots that look and are programmed like humans can allow for a darker side of humans to be shown. Because after all, what kind of rights do these robots hold. We must ask ourselves are they robot or are they human? Since they are technically both those this mean they must we must protect them like we protect humans. This technology can allow bad people to do bad things. What if a pedophile wants to make robot children. If they are not consider human is this immoral and could we have any say over it.
 I think it can also pose a problem when people want to make robots of living people. This can create a world of distress. It could develop into allowing us to live in our own worlds where we have our own versions of everyone. We could program people however we want. This could allow for humans to be desensitized from one another. Although this technology is interesting I think we should not continue to try and make robots like humans.

The Live Ones

Jair Patricio

Dr. Leigh

Philosophy

4 April 2018   

The Live Ones

            Well, it is time to let my thoughts speak and my ideas to take form, right? I know we all have a stand about androids and how they are going to be incorporated into our lives, but I have my claim. I really am indifferent on the whole subject because the future is never certain for a person or object. There are pieces of us that like to consider that androids are going to become more human-like, yet the question remains. Can they be “alive”? It’s messed up question to not make you doubt anything else about yourself, but because everyone has a thought to share. Mine is to say that androids are not necessarily my favorite subject to talk about, it’s because they are trying to copy us.

    We are just making copies of a real person or something that already existed in nature. We are just naming it and giving it a purpose just like humans. God created us with free will, but these don’t have that. We are not God. I don’t like the idea of androids living among us, but I will accept it if it comes to that. You know why? It’s because we are intelligent creatures that can adapt to certain environments. We flourish because we are adaptable and susceptible to change.

    Another reason as to why I don’t think that Android is considered human of the love part. I will take inference of the black mirror episode of Be Right Back. Now the creator already has a little imagination as to where he acknowledges the advancement of technology, and to think that we will one day make an android so lifelike is proof that we can achieve it. Yet there is a repugnant sick plot that makes me hate this episode. It’s the way our main character (wife) tries to consent with her loved one’s death. I find it disturbing because one cannot just try to remake a human being. This android, Ash2, is nothing like Ash because he bears no real memory of him nor is it a person because it's just an object that has a 2D screen or skin that is meant to look like the real Ash. No, this isn’t normal because no one is to have a replica of their deceased. It can be kept a secret for all I care but deep inside that person’s mind, they know that it’s causing them more pain than it should.

    I know, I know, how is it different from what we have like our customs of pictures and graves and people preserving their dead body parts? That is something that I will give to the other side because I can say that wasn’t normal back then either. Now we have people and churches that do that because they say that it symbolic and more, but when we look at androids it a whole different story. I would like to have my children see how I was before before I had them. So, they can say “hey, my dad was a real looker or wow he’s so different, what age did to him” but having an android changes all that because they are going to see that my past and isn’t anything like the future. I recall the episode having made this statement, “you aren’t him, your just ripples of him and you aren’t him’. I wouldn’t want my children just to see what I was and not what I am now. I want my children to live in the present because living in the past only brings grief and living in the future brings anxiety but living in the present brings peace.

            I can say that I’m afraid of the unknown because I really don’t have proof of what the future will bring. Nothing actually hold its value anymore, rarely it does, but the majority is brushed aside. Nobody is being remembered forever because we all care about of what happening around us now. Nobody in the future is going to care about our accomplishments because they have their accomplishments they’re trying to make. They use us a base and that’s pretty much it.

            I just got done hanging out with a few of my friends from high school because truth be told I missed my past. I tried to catch up on a lot of things like what has changed in our little childhood town or did anything happen to him but what I got was news of everybody I thought I knew. I learned that life moves on, whether you are present or not. People make their own goals that no one is aware of, people suffer in silence because no one else cares to listen, and people leave because there is no one left that has a reason for them to stays. I just took a minute to process all this and come up with a conclusion that everything is just shit.

            This previous paragraph just shows how much one person has their own system. It shows why we don’t care about what’s around us because of something in the past. I came to my past to see what’s left; not to see everything the same way it was before because that would be weird. Change is part of life and if it means that androids are going to coexist with human, so be it. But I do not like it. 

Black Mirror

In the Black Mirror episode, "Be Right Back" the main character, Martha loses her husband Ash in a car accident. She struggles through the loss when her friend Sarah, signs her up from this software program which takes all of Ash's online profile information and creates a profile which acts as him. At first Martha is hesitant because she wants to grieve him, but then she finds out she is pregnant and does not want to go through it alone. It first begins with emails and messaging acting as Ash would, then she tells him "I wish we could talk" the program then tells her that they can all she has to do is send in videos with Ash talking. Within moments the phone rings and Martha answers it, on the other side of the phone is a voice identical to Ash's, the scary part is that since she can't see him it's as if she's really talking to him. He talks about things they used to discuss, the only problem is the program doesn't know what his personality is like so Martha would have to teach it things about them that were private and not online. Martha soon becomes obsessed with the phone and her daily life has become revolved around it, forgetting that Ash is really dead, until she does to a doctor appointment to hear the babies heart beat and she drops the phone. Having a panic attack she rushes back to the house to charge it and hear his voice again through her tears she says "I thought I lost you" the irony is that's not really Ash, she lost the real Ash in a car crash, that is only technology impersonating him but because of her emotions she cannot see that. "Ash" then tells her theres a way she can really have him back. A package comes in that has pieces of a body, but its a robot. Martha follows the instructions and out walks an exact replica of Ash with his voice too. It is a robot that has flesh like a human and acts exactly as a robot. At first she is skeptical then she starts to accept the fact that she might have him back until one night she has the realization that he is not really Ash, it is just a statue of flesh with his voice and ideas of what Ash was like. This robot did not act or treat her like Ash used to until it came a point when she was so tired of it she wanted the robot to kill itself, jump off the cliff. Because it follows orders it was going to jump until she told it how the real Ash would have been crying and fighting not to. Because the robot is programmed to do as she says and acts as Ash would it begins to cry and ask for its life which is extremely difficult for Martha since its Ash's voice begging for his life. The screen cuts black and the next thing we see is a little girl running around (the baby grown up) she cuts a piece of cake and asks mom if she can bring it to Ash because it is her birthday. The little girl walks up and robot ash is up there he's been her prisoner. People are always talking about how they think AI are going to take over the world one day and we will be slaves to them, but the irony is this robot has become her prisoner or slave. I like the idea of AI being someday integrated into our daily lives because I think it will help with everyday tasks or improving society but one day it could come to a point when its more of abuse rather than helping out. I think people will use the robots more than necessary but because AI cannot feel emotion I don't like we need to worry about them feeling overworked and revolting. The only problem is because they cannot feel emotion they may not know when someone is being literal or not in our society. But the overall idea of AI is great because even if we do find problems we can always just take out their batteries or beat them till they break. But their contributions can help advance us to points that we cannot do on our own. I think where we need to draw the line is making them look and sound like humans (ash) because then people will get confused in the head and being in love with a robot is not okay. As long as they stay looking like normal robots and not real people we shouldn't worry because then there is a difference between us and them because physical is the first thing people recognize when dealing with the world.

Things are getting weird, and I'm all for it.

In the episode of Black Mirror titled, "Be Right Back," a man named Ash dies in a car accident leaving behind his wife. At Ash's funeral reception one of the wife's friends explained to her about a new software system where you can communicate visually with someone who has died. Her friend ends up signing her up and she becomes addicted to talking to her "husband." The wife is then introduced to a new product that allows people to live with a robot that is identical to their loved one. She signs up for this and begins to live with a robot that acts and looks just like her dead husband. End the end Martha keeps her robot husband in her attic and her daughter gets to see him on the weekends and occasionally on special holidays. This is unfortunately something that could be accessible to humans in real life in the next 50 years. I think the software that allows people to communicate with a loved one after their death through the computer is not necessarily that creepy of an idea. On the other hand, to go as far as having a realistic robot to live with you is not healthy. I think that an alternative to that idea is that people will begin to have robots living in their homes that look more like mechanical figures. Just as the uncanny valley explains, people find things that look extremely similar to humans creepy. I agree that having realistic looking human robots is creepy and has the potential to impact humans in an unhealthy psychological way. For instance, children who grow up with human parents and also human-like robot nannies/babysitters might become more accustom to listening to their robot authorities than their own parents. This would create conversations between parents and children about how far authority of a robot extends to. Society would need to create regulations for robots that live side by side with humans so that children do not confuse their authority. If society did begin to integrate robots into homes I think that laws would have to be enacted so that they are not abused. I know that robots do not have feelings but it is not ethical to use them for purposes of violence. However, I think it is inevitable that robots will be used for violent acts because there are crazy people in the world who don't want to get their own hands dirty so they will buy or create to software to make a robot who will do the work for them. After all is said and done, I am totally for all the technological advancements with AI and cyborgs taking place as we speak. I think that one day robots will be able to know who is on their side and who is against their improvement. So, future robots, here is my proof that I am and always have been on your side.