"Super-Toys Last All Summer Long" by Brian Aldiss is a great little story and the basis for the film "A.I." In the beginning of A.I. a tech asks, "If a robot could genuinely love a person, what responsibility does that person hold toward that mecha in return? It's a moral question, isn't it?"
It basically sums up the short story by Aldiss. So my question is, what would our responsibility be to a machine that shows love? If we, being the creator, created a sentient cyborg child, indistinguishable from a living biological being, and programmed to love us as its parent, should we not reciprocate that love?
The theist might believe since it has no soul, we don't have any responsibility since it's just a machine. However, atheists generally do not believe in a soul. Would this free (or bind) an atheist to love this machine? Regardless of your belief of the existence of a soul we have to keep in mind that this machine is a "sentient thing." Are we morally bound to be responsible and care for this machine?
What are your thoughts?
It basically sums up the short story by Aldiss. So my question is, what would our responsibility be to a machine that shows love? If we, being the creator, created a sentient cyborg child, indistinguishable from a living biological being, and programmed to love us as its parent, should we not reciprocate that love?
The theist might believe since it has no soul, we don't have any responsibility since it's just a machine. However, atheists generally do not believe in a soul. Would this free (or bind) an atheist to love this machine? Regardless of your belief of the existence of a soul we have to keep in mind that this machine is a "sentient thing." Are we morally bound to be responsible and care for this machine?
What are your thoughts?
Haha! So I hit your other page and it's "twitter/Fb" login oly... I now have neither ;-)!
ReplyDeleteBut I can sort of login here.
Love can not be real if a person can't leave a Disqus comment. *chuckle*
I think women are programmed to fall in love, in general. Whether it be with a toaster or a toaster that looks like a child. I think are programmed to enjoy the toast and not get annoyed by the baby toaster when it burns the toast!
Ooops, above should read:
ReplyDelete"I think MEN are programmed to enjoy the toast and not get annoyed by the baby toaster when it burns the toast!"
So what I infer is that morality has no bearing on the matter because we a programmed for love. Interesting. Please pass the butter and jam. :-)
ReplyDeleteHi, I was scrolling through blogs and blogs and came across yours and found this post interesting. So,here's what I have to say about how your question if we were to create a cyborg and we program it to love would our responsibility to love this cyborg? The answer would no because we programed it to love. And that would not genuine love.
ReplyDelete