We watched Blade Runner: The Director's Cut in class. Going straight to the point, I think that the most important message of the movie is that a machine that looks like a human, walks like a human, talks like a human, and thinks like a human it is a human. Humans are machines made by evolution: the materials may be different, but our construction is essentially the same. A machine made to have the same (or greater) mental capacities should be treated as a sentient human. You shouldn’t make such a machine and expect it to be any less inventive and unpredictable and free-thinking as a human. If you make such a machine also almost physically invincible, you better make sure to keep it in check (unlike that sucker Tyrell). Obviously he never watched any sci-fi, which makes it quite obvious that he had it coming.
What would be the purpose of such a machine anyway? Mining in other planets? Companionship? Sex? All of these tasks could be more cheaply fulfilled by people, especially in an overpopulated planet like Blade Runner’s Earth is where labor is probably cheap. It seems silly to me to go to the massive, mind boggling expense of building a machine that’s as complex as a human for almost any task.
It would be unethical to make such a machine as well. It would be deprived of many of life’s pleasures, i.e. sex, drugs, rock and roll, and food. Unless you limited its lifespan, it would be close to immortal, which probably sucks. If you limited it and restricted it for its whole life, that would be slavery. Of course, in sci fi the theme is usually “ethics, who cares?”
Avi you raise many valid points. However, don't you believe that progress is inevitable? In this movie progress comes in the form of an AI. I believe the development of AI technology is more probable than equality for women in these next years, so there you go.
ReplyDeleteI agree that it seems totally unethical, but I do see how it could easily come to play in the real world. I think not too far in the future we will have robots like this.
ReplyDeleteRemember when one of the replicants said that said, "I think therefore I am".
ReplyDeleteThe replicants were primarily created for slavery, they do jobs that not even humans can do, right?
I too enjoy lifes pleasures like drugs
In the beginning you state that the replicants are humans with different materials, but replicants are actually bio-engineered and so the materials are very likely to be the same. This I think just further proves the point you made, in that replicants are just actually humans.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I think advanced machines are essentially human. But it might be essential to human "progression" That we pretend they are not or at least program to make them just short of human (is sentience a threshold or a gradient, idk). By doing this we satisfy the human desire for convenience and control while convincing ourselves that we are being ethically in the green. Idk, maybe I'm just being cynical because I'm super tired.
ReplyDeleteI greatly agree that they would be deprived of anything making life worth living. I do think that we are on a quick path towards creating some prototype of human replacement that will change things.
ReplyDeleteHa! I love your title. It's more or less the Turing Test, right?
ReplyDeleteI think the idea is that having humans do dangerous or degrading work IS unethical--that producing replicants (who aren't really supposed to be sentient, who have systems built in to keep them from gaining sentience) is fine.