Smartphones aren't sentient, smartphones don't feel oppressed, smartphones aren't capable of reaching the same mental capacity as us, smartphones don't understand morals. Smartphones aren't AIs, Androids are.

You're comparing two different things to make a point justifying the slavery on Androids.

There IS a definition for life.

It might not be 100% correct since I'm translating it from my language.

1. It has to be distinguishable from its environment (check!)

2. It has some kind of metabolism. (well... kinda, androids certainly consume SOMETHING)

3. It has to organize and regulate itself, kinda looses in the translation... let's just say it must be able to take care of itself. (This MIGHT be true for an android that is sentient. Unless his battery needs to be exchanged every decade or something like this)

4. It must be capale of reproduction. (Very debatable. Surely an android can build another android, but I am not sure this counts as reproduction. Or if they even want to. But the possibility to reproduce on the spot, given the right tools instead of a 9month gestation period is scary.)

5. It must be capable of growth. (Definitely not!)

6. It must perceive its surroundings and react to them.

That is the definition of life as I know it, and is generally accepted (altough of course often debated)

According to this a virus is NOT a form of life and neither is the android - the amoeba on the other hand is very much alive.

Either way, I would simply call sentient machines a synthetic kind of lifeform.

And then either enforce programming that makes it impossible for them to reproduce without the aid of humans and maybe add the laws of robotics....

OR destroy them.Wipe them out.

Remember that one guy? Darwin?

Life competes for resources, and the strongest survives.

Another competitor? No thank you, better ensure the survival of my own race.

Better a cynic survivor (who getts the approval of The Sinks Toaster) than a dead member of an extinct race.

You do realize that the logic of "It's better to kill them then let them kill us" is nothing but unfound paranoia that would only lead to exactly what you're saying but it's not because of them, it's because you refused to treat them with respect and equality. This exact situation has been done in sci-fi movies and books for decades and it always ends with the artificial life winning because humans can't bother to learn what equality is.

The only way for Androids to go on a mass rally for human extinction is because humans were too ignorant to treat them as equals and accept them. Co-exist is possible, it just takes understanding and not ignorance.

Heh well said.

But i dont really care if freeing machines is part of the main quest. As long as the game is fun ill enjoy it

Smartphones can be programmed to cry when they get overheated for example, that does not mean they feel. It's the same thing. Everything your androids "feel" is a program meant to simulate real feeling but not the feeling itself, not truly, rather an interpretation given by someone else and not Something else. A cheap knock-off of the real thing done by people who lack the total understanding over the therms of "soul" and "feeling", a preconceived idea given shape in digital format. Therefore a program meant to simulate a human being lacking most of the external influence and experience that shape a human being plus the notion of "life" that humans struggle with from the moment of birth, with the biological aspects in combination with the psychological defined by natural imperfection, aspects that do not apply to your machines not even making them a form of life as life is understood under the simplest definition just a souped up smartphone trying to simulate a man. So in conclusion, androids are not oppressed because they are not alive, just a thing meant to be used by it's owner for whatever purpose it was designed for. And while I can understand some people getting attached to objects, this is just taking it too far.

Quoted for truth

What you continuously fail to address is: if the 'droid was not created to manifest these reactions and then does so ANYWAY what does that imply?

As the institute see it Zimmer is glitched. Androids are designed to be loyal, they are intelligent who makes them more useful than an stupid robot.

Downside is that the intelligence might also have them questioning their motivation so they can stop being loyal, this is rare as the conditioning is deep but it happens. An android who see all humans as enemies is also glitched.

yes this is an more serious glitch however the institute would not use all the resources developing and constructing androids if they was not useful.

Now you could claim the androids should be loyal to the institute as it created them and they would not exist without it.

This might well be how the other android thinks. Note that treatment of the android might well affect the conditioning like with humans, an android with an decent life has lite reason to reject the institute, send one on a suicide mission and its good chance it will rebel.

Everyone is completely off topic....this thread was not meant to hash out a "what is life topic"

It implies that the builder made a mistake.

If you buy a car and the brakes fail to work, those cars are recalled. Yes this happens far to often.


If you make PCs, and some shutdown while playing videos, then you will need to fix the bug.


This isnt the machines rebelling. They are just malfunctioning.


Building machines isnt perfect so some robots will behave poorly.

You then project your own emotions on these dead machines and think the have a will. They dont, even if they are built to emulate free will. Its just imitation.

That'd make sense. If the two were at all alike. If an android repeated the same phrase, or displayed it's 'empathy' in the wrong situations or twitched or just randomly shut down, or fell into a loop and continuously repeated the same actions that would be a malfunction. A mistake. An oopsy. But constructing entirely separate motive and then showing the complicated decision making processes required to pursue it? It might be convenient to call that a bug, that it's not 'really' displaying needs or wants but... it kinda is. I'm sure the creator definitely made a mistake but that doesn't give them the right to now 'fix' it. They made something sentient, going against it's established wishes is akin to going against a person's.

But I did. The manifestations you are talking about are still simulations, intended or unintended. Which kind of strays for the subject because androids were created to impersonate human beings so them not being manufactured to simulate humans is not really in question here, what is in question is people's awkward desire to make it more than it is - an appliance acting up.

And here it is again, that arbitrary line of what is and isn't. Why is a human's reaction to being treated as a thing, chafing under that label, and self-preservative reaction to being "disposed of" a real thing, but is only a "simulation" in an artificial sapient? And don't even try to answer "because it's just a machine", because I will just respond "so are we, if you get down to it". Again.

Simulations outside their original, intended parameters based off some kind of desire. Motive. Want. Impetus. "Simulated" mayhaps but functionally indistinguishable from stated human motivation. What is it that makes human motivation somehow more?

Yeah you answer humans are machines. Which is absurd.

Machines are machines however, even if they are built to look and act like humans. They are absolutely devoid of life.

Like a car, smart phone or toaster

Indeed

They are alike and it makes perfect sense.

Fixing a machine isnt akin to going against a humans wishes.

It is a simulation. I don't know how you messed it around in your head to make it sound like it does but it is a simulation. I guess over-romanticizing this whole oppressed machine with feelings deal does that, huh? But sorry, the human status does not get passed around like warm bread and fresh water. To be human you need to fulfill a lot of conditions, which machines don't and before getting to that stage they have to be alive which they are not, so please spare me the "we are machines" quote, we are organisms naturally born and shaped over generations and generations to come, naturally diverse and unique. Machines are machines, no more no less, even if they just cut the grass on your lawn of program themselves to cry and feel pain they remain machines. End of story.

I totally agree! A non sentient machine has no wishes. Alas. We speak not of such.

Good to hear you finally saw reason

Machines are humans- what a joke

Or humans are machines - so absurd its funny

Incredibly complex machines equaling humanity and thus deserving similar rights? Totally possible! And congruent with the knowledge and examples we have.

BUT!

This rabbit hole goes nowhere. I will leave this:

And bid you all, good sirs and or madams, a good day.

Well no, machines aren't humans. They were created using synthetic organ and fluid and wiring. But if they're not hurting my character, my character (if he/she is planned to be good) won't harm them.

Another thing some people missed on. Humans have to be taught, a machine can be programmed. A human growing up in the slums in a crime-infested city will not be the same human that grew up in a sprawling countryside near an extremely friendly neighborhood. Life experiences and all of that. A machine is a machine.

Androids are like any other machine - they're either a benefit or a hazard. If they're a benefit, it's not my problem.

Artificial Neural Nets. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qv6UVOQ0F44

And as for "machines" being programmed and designed and "life forms" not being so... Artificial selection. We humans have been doing it to other species since antiquity (for, among other things, behavior which is what is pertinent here), since long before Gregor Mendel first anolyzed the apparatus for heredity. Recently, we've been directly manipulating these... wait for it... molecular programs for heredity known as DNA to get the desired traits.

http://cdn.hitfix.com/photos/5974808/Film_Nerd_-_Blade_Runner_and_The_Party_article_story_large.jpg