Conflict between Human and Artificial Intelligence - Essay Example

Conflict between human and artificial intelligence The question over whether a robot can honestly feel human emotions remains a theme throughout science fiction literature as being among the principle characteristics separating humans from machines provided with any sort of artificial intelligence or simulation of life. For some, the concept of a ‘perfect’ human leads its way to the creation of a perfect technologically utopian society. Technologically utopian societies “are set in the future, when it is believed that advanced science and technology will allow utopian living standards; for example, the absence of death and suffering; changes in human nature and the human condition. These utopian societies tend to change what ‘human’ is all about. Technology has affected the way humans have lived to such an extent that normal functions, like sleep, eating or even reproduction, has been replaced by an artificial means” (“Utopia”, 2006). In this view, the robots are nearly indistinguishable from humans in the way they function and in their ability to respond in much the way humans might, with only slight differences circulating around the ability to feel emotion. Still other viewpoints hold that technology of this caliber would lead to a technological dystopia, in which all these advances lead instead to a decline in the quality of life led by the human citizens. “A dystopia is usually characterized by an authoritarian or totalitarian form of government, or some other kind of oppressive social control” (“Dystopia”, 2006). This question of whether or to what degree a man-made creation can feel human emotions plays a large role in the interpretation of how this society develops as well as the development of the creations themselves. In both cases, utopia or dystopia, the judgment call is made on the quality of life of the humans, with little to no regard for the lifestyle and options available to the robots who have achieved a higher level of existence. Several films have been created to illustrate these varying viewpoints, including Frankenstein, War Games, Blade Runner, The Terminator, Stepford Wives, I Robot and AI: Artificial Intelligence. Technology first allows man to create life out of nothing, without the interference of God, in the tale of Frankenstein, first written in the 1817 by Mary Shelley and made into film in 1931 (Irvine, 1997). In this instance, technology attempts utopia by conquering death but goes awry by bringing to life a creature that can find no acceptance and little understanding in the tiny German village in which he was created. His body, put together piecemeal by Dr. Frankenstein himself, is gruesome to look upon while his mind remains incapable of coming to terms with its new host. Although the humans who come into contact with him originally look at him as little more than a monster, this imperfect creation has demonstrated a capacity for feeling – in his struggle for preservation, in his remorse at the young girl’s drowning and in his pursuit of the man who created him (in essence, his father). Those closest to him, such as Dr. Frankenstein himself, begin to gain an understanding of this depth of feeling, yet the world into which the monster has been thrown is not capable of understanding him nor is he capable of communicating to them his own unique form of humanity. This lack of communication between creation and humanity ultimately ends in the monster’s violent destruction. The film War Games presents a completely different sort of intelligence in the form of a large, boxlike computer infused with the artificial intelligence program known as Joshua. Here, Joshua is asked to play a game entitled Thermonuclear War by a teenager who has hacked into the system without realizing that the computer is actually connected to the nation’s nuclear defense weapons systems. The teenager is likewise incapable, at least at first, of understanding that the computer goes a little ways beyond being merely a machine. The utopian connection here is in taking the overwhelming decision to launch the bombs that will effectively end mankind mercifully out of the hands of an individual human and placing it in the completely logical and impassionate control of a machine. However, precisely because the computer is not human, the lack of human reasoning and experience makes it capable of acting without first examining the probable outcomes of the game. It is only when David (the teenager) finally comes to grips with the idea that the artificial intelligence housed in the computer might also possess the human trait of listening to its creator, its father, that the teenagers and Dr. Falken are able to win their way through to Joshua’s side and reason with him as if he were real. With this action, Joshua, in a very human move, is finally able to disconnect from the system long enough to run through all of the available moves and countermoves that can be undertaken by the world’s powers to finally come to the conclusion that “the only winning move is not to play” (Wargames, 1983). Blade Runner, created in 1982, introduced the concept of a machine that was made to look and act so much like a human that the only way to tell the difference became a kind of lie detector test that measured the emotional response of an individual to questions that dealt primarily with memories. Rick Deckard, the man hired to hunt down the renegade replicants, appears as a hardened loner bounty hunter very reluctant to perform his job. He consistently refers to the replicants as things and refuses to consider the idea that they might have feelings and motivations of their own that have little or nothing to do with harming the human race per se. By contrast, Rutger Hauer’s character, Roy Batty, demonstrates an almost childlike reaction to losing his comrades in arms, Leon Kowalski and Zhora. His reaction to losing Pris indicates a somewhat deeper affection, perhaps even love, for this mischievous and alluring woman. This dystopian society illustrates the problems with creating a being so perfect that it outperforms the humans who created them, making it necessary for the four-year programming. It also calls into question whether the humans should retain control as the replicants seem more capable of establishing emotional connections with others than the humans. As he hunts down the replicant band, Decker discovers another replicant that has been so well programmed that even she didn’t realize she’d been created rather than born. His discoveries regarding the motivations for the replicants to have broken the law to come to earth as well as the depth of their connections to each other and their capacity to show mercy bring him to the conclusion that perhaps there aren’t so many differences between the matured artificial intelligence of the replicants and the deadened intelligence of the humans. A future world completely dominated by robots that have undertaken the task of completely eliminating the human race prompts the action of The Terminator. Again presenting a dystopian society, a cyborg travels back in time to destroy the one person who can stop the machines before he is born. Whereas technologically created human simulations have merely tried to understand their surroundings and create a better existence for themselves in films created up to this point, The Terminator introduces the concept of the machines becoming smart enough to realize that it is only the humans that are keeping them from reaching their full potential. In the meantime, they’ve not been provided with even the slightest degree of human emotion or sensitivity and instead deem it as a weakness in the species that the machines have overcome. Although they are generally considered to be superior to the human race in strength, ability and strategy by both themselves and the humans of their time, it is the human spirit and creativity brought out through these emotions that has enabled the survival of the species to this point. As the Terminator travels back to a less technologically advanced time period, it is still the inability of the machine and the ability of the human to form emotional connections that provide strength, drive, creativity and inspiration enough for the humans to prevail. In The Stepford Wives, the attempt to create a utopian society fails because of the extreme subjugation of the human spirit in favor of a narrowly focused ideal image. This society left no room for difference of any kind, resorting to robotic technology as a means of artificially altering the personalities of strong women to that of the stereotypical 50s housewife – brainless, thoughtless, and completely subservient. In the process of becoming every man’s dream, these women lost the qualities that their husbands had appreciated in them in the first place, including their ability to feel real emotion and provide real interaction with their spouse. Although Jerry and Dave felt that they had finally made their significant others, Roger and Bonnie, into the perfect spouse, both had lost the qualities that had made them unique and special – namely Roger’s fashion sense and Bonnie’s wit. When Joanna is confronted by Walter and the other men just before her own transformation, she argues against the process by asking if the women can tell their husbands they love them and still mean it, exposing the utopic dream for the dystopic reality it is. When Walter chooses humanity over machinery, he expresses his own belief in human emotions as being the important difference while Claire’s breakdown highlights the dysfunctional society built without them. Even though their emotions and identities had been suppressed by the technology involved, the women, upon waking from their electronic dreams, expressed the kind of anger that could only be achieved if they had been able, at some level, to understand what was happening. In this respect, the film also works to express the concept that technology is just not capable of completely overwhelming the human spirit, even when that is its primary function. Another seemingly utopic society is shown at the beginning of I, Robot. Here, society has become dependent upon server robots. Only one robot has been provided with a higher form of programming that is intended not only to simulate life, but to also possess the ability to learn, feel and express emotion. Although most people tend to appreciate the robots for the comforts the machinery provides, it is their inability to understand human capabilities and emotions that has Detective Del Spooner frustrated. It is only through his ability to prove his humanity through his expression and understanding of emotion that Sonny is finally able to convince Susan and then Spooner of his innocence, leading them to the discovery of the evil plot unfolding in the nick of time. Like Frankenstein, Joshua and the replicants, the main motivation for this robot lies in the struggle to convince humans of their own special unique characters despite their construction. Like the films these characters are associated with, the primary growth of the humans comes about with their understanding and recognition of this special quality. AI: Artificial Intelligence presents both the most completely created robot being as well as the most extreme form of dystopia yet presented. David is created to be so life-like as to be completely mistaken for the real thing, including the ability to love a human and the ability to make a human love him back. His ability to demonstrate love for his Mommy, Monica, equals the same types of actions that a normal child would demonstrate. When threatened, he turns to his elders for protection, even when that action leads only to more trouble, as when he ended up pulling the physically smaller Martin into the pool, nearly drowning him by accident as a result of his fear. When presented with an opposing figure, in the form of an ‘older’ brother, David feels his mother’s love is threatened and becomes willing to do almost anything that would win him his mother’s love at least on an equal level as that demonstrated toward her real boy, Martin. When he is rejected, he goes on a quest to find the Blue Fairy of Pinocchio legend so that she can make him into a real boy, too, “and then Mommy will love me.” This search further demonstrates his ‘humanity.’ As Professor Hobby tells him, the choice to pursue a chance at illogical magic instead of determining the most logical path to follow is a particularly human trait emerging from a purely emotional rather than rational response. As the film demonstrates a definite blur between the human and the robot, it also demonstrates the inability of the humans to live with the robots that are becoming ever more lifelike. This can be seen in the brutality and wanton destruction of the Flesh Fair at which David is nearly destroyed except for his non-robotic blatant fear of impending death – “mecs don’t plead for their lives.” Even the response of his ‘parents’ demonstrate a lack of human ability to recognize robotic humanity as they consistently interpret his actions as dangerously hostile rather than innocent accident. However, the real dystopia is demonstrated as the movie winds to its conclusion. Although David still loves his mommy and seeks acceptance from her, she has been dead for more than two thousand years and cannot provide him with what he has been seeking all this time. Nowhere in his programming has he been provided with the tools to deal with this loss and endless suffering. When the aliens give him a chance to spend a single day with a genetic copy of her after which he will most definitely lose her forever, David finally hears the words he’s been waiting for and goes to sleep himself, demonstrating another human response once he finally attained the acceptance he wanted. Through film, the subject of artificial intelligence has demonstrated that the significant difference between human and machine is the ability to feel and express emotion to a degree at which someone will recognize it. In every instance, even when the utopic dream has been seemingly realized, significant problems remain. Frankenstein, Joshua, Sonny, David and the replicants all experience a similar difficulty in trying to convince the humans around them that they, too, possess a unique quality that will be lost upon their destruction while characters such as the Terminator and the women of Stepford are created with the express purpose of eliminating emotion and individuality in favor of the strength or serenity of its absence. Human characters, while they tend to recognize and appreciate their own abilities to feel emotion and their own individuality, tend to disassociate not only from the robots as individuals, but from other humans as well. Despite this, it is when they are able to make connections, either with the emotional robots or with other human characters within the story that they are able to find a way to succeed to a happy ending. Works Cited AI: Artificial Intelligence. Dir. Steven Spielberg. Perf. Haley Joel Osment, Frances O’Connor, Sam Robards, Jake Thomas and Jude Law. Warner Brothers, 2001. Blade Runner. Dir. Ridley Scott. Perf. Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young, Edward James Olmos and Daryl Hannah. Warner Brothers, 1982. “Dystopia.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 2006. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. August 5, 2006 . Frankenstein. Dir. James Whale. Perf. Colin Clive, Mae Clarke, John Boles, Boris Karloff and Edward Van Sloan. Universal Studios, 1931. I, Robot. Dir. Alex Proyas. Perf. Will Smith, Bridget Moynahan, Alan Tudyk, James Cromwell and Bruce Greenwood. Twentieth Century Fox, 2004. Irvine, Martin. “Resources for the Study of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.” Georgetown University, (July 30, 1997). August 5, 2006 < http://www.georgetown.edu/faculty/irvinem/english016/franken/franken.htm> The Stepford Wives. Dir. Frank Oz. Perf. Nicole Kidman, Matthew Broderick, Bette Midler, Glenn Close and Christopher Walken. Paramount, 2004. The Terminator. Dir. James Cameron. Perf. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Michael Biehn, Linda Hamilton, Paul Winfield and Lance Henrikson. Orion, 1984. “Utopia.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 2006. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. August 5, 2006 . WarGames. Dir. John Badham. Perf. Matthew Broderick, Dabney Coleman, John Wood, Ally Sheedy and Barry Corbin. MGM, 1983. Read More