To me the launch trailer clearly portrays The Institute as the evil bad guys this time around. And that the synths are supposed to be sympathetic and downtrodden.

In both FO3 & FNV I fought against slavery and oppression.

I guess this time I get to be a bad guy because a machine is a machine. They are not "non-human persons". They are assembly line collections of wires and circuit boards. Just because a toaster can walk and talk and "think" as dictated by its programmed logic functions does not make it anything more than a toaster.

If I build a machine myself, or buy it preassembled, it is my property. If it decides to walk away I would hope some kind soul would return it to me. If it begins to malfunction and hurt people I hope some kind soul would deactivate it in the safest, most expedient manner. I will do the same to any errant toasters I encounter.

My guess it that they trying an gray-gray setting, it worked pretty well in skyrim, no agreement in who side to support in the civil war.

However remember to always use the shoot them in the face dialogue option.

Me doth think you aren't going to do very well in the next 50-100 years of human existence when it becomes difficult if not impossible to tell artificial intelligence from biological and "real" humans from "produced."

Don't worry, you can have Earth; the rest of us have the Universe to explore.

Are we not organic machines that are governed by a complex orchestra of hormones and pheromones? Are they not our programming. What if a being came down and said "You are all my property because I made you! Now make me toast!" Wouldnt you feel as those machines feel?

Unless it's from Cybertron, a robot will always be just a robot. I don't care what anyone says. I did the same thing in Mass Effect 3 for the Geth.

Um, how are the Geth any different from any of the non-human races?

They were built, not born. They all operate as a hive mind for the most part, what makes them not different?

As charon711 alludes to, we are basically machines.Humans are ultimately defined by their DNA sequence; a literal series of numbers, letters and other forms of data.

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=dna+sequence&client=ms-android-motorola&prmd=ivn&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAWoVChMIq560ioP9yAIVBbcUCh2QggzC#imgrc=d9ShUML3Fz8CTM%3A

For people to discriminate between humans and robots, we have to be able to infer and quantify what separates us and its significance. If we can't then the mere premise of us being different from robots becomes unfalsifiable.

I draw my line at the "organic" bit. Yes. If you're going to describe humans in a very basic way, we could be considered organic machines. It's the organic part that makes our life "life" And not something synthetic, like the truely robotic machines encountered in Fallout.

Most of the world already are devoted to higher beings that they believe created them. You know, religion and all that. If a great beam shined through my window right now, and a booming voice told me that it created me and wanted some toast in return, I'd be excited and terrified. But I'd definitely be on my feet to make it some toast.

Even "organic" is a misnomer. That just means carbon-based. We are machines. We reassemble at a microscopic level and, through natural selection, "improve future models."

There is quite hardly a difference, to my eyes.

Edit: and me and that light shining in the darkness would need to have some words before he gets his deity-damned toast.

we're a little more than that

I am not going to think that machines are people. These are just machines that look like people. If they looked like smart phones would we still be wanting to be treating them like people?

Ghouls and Supermutants I believe are alive and if they want to co-exist with humans I'd be all for helping them let that happen. But a machine? I sure hope this isn't like that EVER SO STUPID choice we had in Skyrim where we had to chose between killing an ancient dragon or joining some jerks that want to boss you around.

We need to know more of the Institute's intentions. It could be more than slavery.

Question:

Was the Calculator alive?

*gets ready to drop mic*

Que sera, sera.

So long as they're not trying to kill me, I don't have a problem with the Synths.

Won't stop me from playing an evil faction if possible, though.

So because you're made of meat, you're automatically superior?

It doesn't matter if one achieves consciousnesses through bio-chemical means or through electrical circuits, it's still consciousness.

True but it's all ultimately predicated on lines of information; not too dissimilar from 'code'.

My main point is, if we can't define what ultimately makes humans 'human' and separate from machines then there is no objective and falsifiable reason to suspect that we are.

The calculator itself? Kind of. I think so, anyway. It's a biological hive mind formed by multiple living human brains and it doesn't operate on any sort of programming, but their own conscious thought.
So I could be swayed in this, but yeah, I think the Calculator is/was alive.

Agreed. I'm not siding with them just because I don't think androids are people. My money is on them using my their androids for something sinister, like body swapping stuff.

With us, the total is far more than the some of the parts

Isn't this fascinating, though? We have so many varying opinions and interpretations and ethics, of what is right and wrong, what defines emotions, pain, or something that is living or humanoid or what we can empathize with. It's a very interesting concept and it makes you think, what life do we value, and what do we value as life? I hope that Bethesda does a good job with its storytelling and atmosphere so that the decision isn't such an easy one for most to make. I hope for true moral dilemmas relating to man and machine.

What makes us different from chimps is abstract thought. Up until 3 1/2 yrs old a chimp and an infant will develop the same. But at 3 or so, the infant will develop abstract thought with role play. The chimp doesn't.

That's another intriguing debate, without derailing the thread, we barely have a cognisance of what the brain is, never mind all of its parts and functions.

The mammalian brain is the most complex thing known to man, the total may just be the amalgamation of all the parts.
I'm not sure where this notion comes from that 'something is greater than the sum of it's parts'?A car is great and complex, but could we really propose that it's greater than the sum of its parts, rather than just the totality of them?

So by that rational a person with a diminished mental capacity isn't a person?

Man is superior - man made machines and even if machines make machines it all

Goes back to made them in the first place

I usually tell my android to shut up and get me a beer