Sat was going to have a line about the Sentinel Prime girls being, ahem, a different type of "real girl," that was sadly redundant in where it would've placed. But they seem more like simple drones than Bastion, even if he isn't the liveliest 'bot to come off the assembly line. They were people once, though, and I'm not sure Bastion was--he was Nimrod before, right?
I'm interested in general, but specifically in the Marvel Universe: what makes some robots want to become 'real' or human; while others are never going to be more than 1's and 0's, angry code. So this takes Vision, Jocasta, and probably Ultron out of the conversation; since they were all based on human brain "engrams" or patterns. Guys like the original Human Torch or Machine Man weren't, but would go on to be pretty cool guys, and I wonder if it's because it wasn't that they "aspired" to be something better, they just weren't given a ton of directives. Torch caught fire and wandered off; Aaron Stack was raised human then same.
Another one I'd have to find later: in Namor #12 or thereabouts, Captain America has a pretty good discussion with Namorita about whether or not clones, or androids, had 'souls.' Cap reasons, he had seen a ton of Nazi bastards who had pretty much sold or ruined their souls, while the Torch saw unimaginable suffering that ended up affecting him deeply, teaching him empathy. A soul maybe has to be earned...wait, I've heard that somewhere before.
I may have to look this up later, but not Uncanny X-Men #194 but around then; Nimrod had a human disguise/identity, and was living somewhere with a kid who looked up to him as a father-figure, role model. Even then, I think I was pretty sure that kid was eventually going to develop mutant powers; and then Nimrod would shoot him in the face. He wasn't the kind of robot that was going to go on to discover feelings or transcend his programming.
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He would've definitely killed the kid if it came to that. Probably where Claremont was going but never followed through.
ReplyDeleteYou could legit have a long & lengthy philosophical debate about souls (I personally believe we're all born with one. What you do w/ it after that is on you though) especially in regards to androids. I feel they would more of less have to earn a soul, yet there has to be some kind of spark there already for them to want to become more human though right?
I know with recent advances with AI & bots and stuff, they're getting better & better at mimicking humans, but that's about it. Online, it's good enough to keep people engaged & riled up, as is the case with bot accounts. That leads us to the Dead Internet Theory of course, where there is legit proof that more & more social media accounts are bots rather than actual people & that number is ever growing.
But back to the soul discussion, for me anyways, it boils down to the wishfullment of man/fantasy of placing that kind of longing to be human onto machines where they might not be any to begin with because machines haven't gotten to the place of total self-awareness yet. Yet being the keyword of course, but give it time right?
Darkhawk's gotta' being laying down some JAMMIN' tracks in that place right? I imagine all of his adventures in outer space & hanging out with specific alien races has really influenced him musically. Like the best aspects of Daft Punk & Techno meets Prog Rock Meets Freeform Jazz raised to the galactic Nth degree.
There definitely should be a 90's guys storyline here at some point celebrating all things 90's with certain 90's characters.
DarkHawk, Nova, Sleepwalker & Quasar all seem like solid candidates for said story, except Nova's more 70's than 90's even that the era that he really started to come into his own. Nope, only REAL 90's kids they'd say to a sad Nova. Something to think about.
Ok, I think maybe Bastion has more than a circuit or two loose- that has to be the dumbest thing an advanced AI has ever said. There's no way that could work for anyone, anywhere at any time. Just 'port his head off and wait for him to be rebooted into a more reasonable and logical mode already.
ReplyDeleteI may be wrong but I believe the original Torch and Machine Man were retconned to having been based on previously existing humans. I think, generally speaking, the robots that want to be human tend to be the ones with the most complex AI or the least debugging done to their programming. Souls are a bit too abstract a concept for me to be getting into- it means whatever you want it to, so you could argue for either side equally well.
@H: They didn't they? Which makes more sense about them wanting to be more human if they were already based off or close to being human already.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes you're right, even the most advanced AI couldn't wrap it's databanks around the concept of a soul only an approximation at best, but only because of the data it was able to find online.
But yeah, debates like these, especially when it pertains to ever-evolving AI thanks to us humans that simply can't help themselves from constantly creating their own problems.