Just a Love Machine...
Nov. 28th, 2004 02:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
newnumber6So, last night I was watching "A.I.: Artificial Intelligence" on TV. I hadn't seen it before. Overall, I quite liked it... occasionally drifted too much into being too much about looking great, for my tastes. Maybe a bit too long. And I hated hated hated hated hated hated the ending. If they ended it maybe 5-10 minutes early, it'd have been great, but I hated what they did with it and will have to mentally edit in my own ending to be at all satisfied with the movie.
Anyway, the movie brought back to mind a few issues about artificial life. See, I've occasionally been in (though philosophy class or just online chit-chat) or passively observed debates about the issue. Specifically, whether it's indeed possible for machines (way down the line, not now) to think, even if they seem to, and whether, even if they think, should they be afforded rights. To me the answer to both is clearly yes - it's not even a question, it's like asking, 'Hey, is murder wrong?'. Yet I continually see the other point of view... that it's not 'real' thought, or that even if it is, we only have a moral duty to be kind to people who are 'like us' (I've heard this last bit in discussions about how to treat aliens too, and that's just bizarre).
The other, slightly newer issue brought up by the movie: Could one love an artificial life form? I think I probably could, so long as they seemed sufficiently humanish (or, in a more abstract 'love for a friend' way, even if they were radically different in appearance or behaviour). But then I'm a freak who has, at times, fallen in love with fictional characters while being fully aware they're entirely fictional, so I recognize that it may not be normal.
So, in general, I was just curious about the views of people reading this on the issue. Maybe it's in part self-selecting, because probably a high percentage of my friends list is a fan of SF or comics and so are routinely exposed to artificial characters who are treated as human.
Anyway, the movie brought back to mind a few issues about artificial life. See, I've occasionally been in (though philosophy class or just online chit-chat) or passively observed debates about the issue. Specifically, whether it's indeed possible for machines (way down the line, not now) to think, even if they seem to, and whether, even if they think, should they be afforded rights. To me the answer to both is clearly yes - it's not even a question, it's like asking, 'Hey, is murder wrong?'. Yet I continually see the other point of view... that it's not 'real' thought, or that even if it is, we only have a moral duty to be kind to people who are 'like us' (I've heard this last bit in discussions about how to treat aliens too, and that's just bizarre).
The other, slightly newer issue brought up by the movie: Could one love an artificial life form? I think I probably could, so long as they seemed sufficiently humanish (or, in a more abstract 'love for a friend' way, even if they were radically different in appearance or behaviour). But then I'm a freak who has, at times, fallen in love with fictional characters while being fully aware they're entirely fictional, so I recognize that it may not be normal.
So, in general, I was just curious about the views of people reading this on the issue. Maybe it's in part self-selecting, because probably a high percentage of my friends list is a fan of SF or comics and so are routinely exposed to artificial characters who are treated as human.
