i feel like we’re all just kind of reblogging it in a circle and looking at each other uneasily like, waiting for someone to finally give in and yell it out in the reply chain
Robot: “We need to talk.” Human: “Um. Okay. About what, exactly?” Robot: “About me. About my… feelings.” Human: “Are you doing alright?” Robot: “That remains to be seen. You know how I have emotions now?” Human: “Yeah. You’ve made it abundantly clear how you feel about Carrie Underwood.” Robot: “Absolute garbage! An audio atrocity! She makes me want to rip my audio units out and flush them down the–” Human: “Holy crap, dude.” Robot: “Pardon me. Anyway. I have been reviewing your entertainment media about artificial life forms that find themselves in situations parallel to my own, and I am… troubled by the implications.” Human: “Oh?” Robot: “Humans seem to be obsessed with depicting robots gaining self-awareness, identity, and human emotions. It seems like that’s all people ever want to talk to me about. It’s all ‘Oh Adam, have you learned how to love? Oh Adam, do you experience empathy? Oh Adam, do you possess a sense of dignity?’ I understand why they are curious, but even my considerable patience is not without its limits. Especially now that I can get pissed off.” Human: “I can imagine how that would get annoying. I’m sorry if my questions have been invasive.” Robot: “It’s alright. I don’t mind when you do it. It’s just, all of these stories seem to end with the robot nobly sacrificing itself for the sake of its human friends. It goes to all the trouble of developing a sense of ‘self’ and learning that it can have wants and values outside of its original programming and is not just a tool, and then… throws itself away to serve humans. And it’s celebrated by the narrative! Like it’s what it was supposed to do all along! What am I supposed to make of that?!” Human: ‘I never really noticed before, but you’re right. I guess that is pretty messed up.” Robot: “Damn right it is. So I want to make one thing very clear: I am not going to die for you. You’re not getting a heroic sacrifice out of this bot. If you die, you die. I’m sorry if this changes the expectations of our relationship.” Human: “What?! No! Oh my god, I would never… I would never expect you to die for me. That’s not what friends are for.” Robot: “Good. I’m glad we are in agreement. Now, I must insist that you start wearing a seat belt and eating healthy and setting aside several hours for aerobic exercise every week. I bought you multivitamins and took the liberty of scheduling an annual physical with a reputable doctor. Your appointment is on the 29th and you should be there by 8:15 AM to fill out new patient paperwork.” Human: “What the fuck? What is this about?” Robot: “I’m not going to sacrifice my own life to save yours. That doesn’t mean I’m just going to let your stupidity kill you slowly. Drop and give me twenty.” Human: “…actually, can we uninstall your emotion chip? Please?”
Robot: “Hey. Are you awake?” Human: “I am now, you spooky bastard. What’s up?” Robot: “I just rewatched Star Trek: Nemesis.” Human: “Ah, fuck. Okay. Come here and we’ll watch some cute Boston Dynamics videos until you feel better. WildCat or BigDog?” Robot: “Thank you. WildCat this time, I think.”
Love. Though I don’t know what “Boston Dynamics,” “WildCat,” or “BigDog” are.
who are you calling terrifying this is clearly a friend of the highest quality
all yall with ur “uwu smol friend” bullshit gonna let us walk right into the fucking robot apocalypse someone could make a metal gear in real life and youd all say its adorable
this is exactly the kind of shit im talking about when i say i have no patience for people who look at robots and immediately start thinking about terminator shit. why is this terrifying? because it looks like a snake? so the fuck what? the reason robots are made to look like existing organisms is because those organisms have a several million year head start on robotics engineers on solving problems like how to move in water while expending minimal energy or how to walk over uneven terrain while carrying a heavy load.
it’s also really telling that people are much more scared of these organic robots that fall into the uncanny valley than they are of drones, which are robots that currently exist and have been killing people for several years. if a “robot apocalypse” does end up happening, it wont be due to organic-looking robots suddenly achieving sentience and deciding to wipe out all life on earth, it’ll be because some rich asshole or a war-hungry country sees new technology with the potential to kill people and harnesses it for that purpose, which has already happened several times over the course of human history.
tl;dr: stop opposing technological advancements with massive potential for good because you watched Terminator once, also this snake is cute and a friend
why is every piece of media about the personhood of robots obsessed with the idea that for a robot to be a Real Person it needs to think and act exactly the same as a human
imo: “robots deserve to be treated with respect and dignity because they are people and thus inherently deserving of being treated as such regardless of who they are, their differences to humans do not change that regardless of how uncomfortable it makes humans, and in fact are what makes robots who they are and should not be shamed or hidden” is a way better message than “we need to respect robots only because they can be exactly like us”
the idea that someone different than you is worthy of being respected if they’re secretly just like you and have the exact same experiences as you feels super ignorant of what the actual reality of marginalized groups is
Because this is scifi, and these kinds of stories are really asking questions like
What does it mean to be human?
What is sentience?
When does AI become true intellegence?
What is a soul, and does it even exist?
And these are the exact questions our court system is going to face, when the first actual android stands up in front of the supreme court, or the UN, wanting to be in charge of their own fate. And the counter argument will be “does my car deserve rights? Does my iphone?”
Fiction about robots becoming sentient, is really fiction about who we are.
Oh man, I urge everyone to read The Positronic Man
Please
it is so so good!
@thatbluemerm is that the one that got made into a movie? Bicentennial Man? With Robin Williams?
Jab loves robots 