In a message dated 7/18/01 12:38:03 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
<< >As for our disposable toys, we have there an
>example of something designed to push well-known human emotional
>buttons--but you don't seriously think they feel, do you?
It's a Turing Test situation, IMHO. Until you can define what emotions are
and prove that you have them and that a Tamagotchi doesn't, I'm not sure I
want to make that call.
This is reminiscent of the "zombie" problem of consciousness. Is it sensical
to talk about something with all of the higher mental capabilities of a
human, capable of passing for a human and interacting with humans, but
missing some very specific part X?
>>
This was the major philosiphical flaw in the movie. It is one thing to ask us
to respond to David as if he were in possession of human emotions and the
ability to feel and act on these feelings. But when you start to embue the
other robots with the same features problems arise. Joe and Teddy act as
feeling entities (especially Teddy) and the film makers have explicitly
designed the actions of these robots to induce an emotional response in the
audience (cute teddy, brave self-sacrificing Joe) but it is precisely these
qualities that would be missing in a real robot and present in David.
Spielberg did not have the courage of his (or Kubrick's) convictions to
present us with robots and intelligent conscious machines (David).
The plot devices were horribly arbitrary and manipulative. The imprint once
and die thing was bad (but as some have argued at least minimally jusitified
since wiping the memory or resetting the emotions of David would arguably
have created a new conscious entity and destroyed "David". Arguably but not
necessarily by the way. Humans undergo changes when life deals them curves
like Mom dying and Dad marrying a new woman who becomes Mom). Worse was the
ending with Mom living only one day so David could become a real boy and fall
asleep (bitter sweet happy ending etc). Talk about a mechanical creature,
this script device had no purpose or rationale other than to allow for this
ending. It stunk.
The good things about AI. The computer generated stuff was wonderful as
expected with Spielberg. The small touches. the homes, the clothes, were
wonderful.
