Sympathy for the Machine

[@Muivin]

This reminds me of people's attachment to their Roombas. It is a vacuum and incredibly non-human, however people begin to see them as a 'pet' or 'part of the family'. If the Roomba breaks people demand that THEIR Roomba is fixed and returned, not replaced.

[@stitches768]

Thanks for the heads up, I'm never getting a roomba now 😂

[@C4H10N4O2]

I can understand that, I like my old car like I would a dog, it's been with me for almost 10 years. I got it when I was 19, it carried me through good and really bad times. I maintain it myself, and it never let me down. I know it's just a pile of parts, but it's been nothing but trusty and it wouldn't feel right not to care for it

[@alexbrewer4570]

​@@C4H10N4O2 Same here. I've got two cars, and the newer of the two is 17 years old and racking up the miles. It's got the personality of an appliance, but it's still a personality. Part of me wants a newer car, but on the other hand, handing her off to someone else feels like abandonment. I can't do that yet, she still has plenty of life to go.

[@richyhu2042]

I remember the post someone made where their Roomba got "scared" in a thunderstorm and started going in circles so they just ended up putting the roomba on their lap like a cat for a long time until the storm was over.

[@dionagona8205]

I got sad when our roomba broke after I had already fixed it so much, I put so much work into fixing that thing and I even read some of the manuals and innerworkings figuring that since I was an engineer I should be able to fix it and keep it living, it was around for years and years, one of the first of its kind to come out but eventually the hardware broke and I can’t even begin to fathom how to repair the motherboard of the thing, replacing it seems like giving your dog a new brain, sure it would look like your dog but it’s not your dog, rest in peace Sucker, you will be missed. The new roomba is pretty cool tho.

[@Genguidanos]

“We robots don’t have emotions, and sometimes, that makes us very sad.” - Bender Bending Rodriguez

[@BJGvideos]

Also "Emotions are dumb and should be hated"

[@Locke-j6j]

one of the best little sci fi jokes. good ref.

[@nicklasmitck2911]

Oh no I can't remember that line, well I guess I have an excuse to watch all of Futurama again. (expect Season 11 really hated that)

[@Locke-j6j]

@@nicklasmitck2911 the new one? I didn't actually mind it but it felt like a short special series meant for nostalgia. they tried to pack a lot of continuations and characters into too many episodes.

[@Sloptopia]

How it feels to have alexithymia

[@ShrimpInACoffin]

Sympathy for the machine is a sick band name

[@Milo_Estobar]

The reverse of "Rage against the machine"

[@randomuser3555]

@@Milo_Estobar Aw damn-it I wanted to make that joke. Bravo!

[@willemvandebeek]

The Rolling Stones have a song called 'Sympathy for the Devil'... listening to its lyrics, it actually could very well be about a robot. o_O

[@HellecticMojo]

@@Milo_Estobar and the cover band, "Indifference at the machine"

[@Shovel_lover-j8g]

I CALL DIBS

[@ArmitageShanksuk]

Everytime I find Mars in Stellaris and you pick up the signal the robot gives off: "My battery is low and it is getting dark." Makes me pause and get all teary.

[@zackbab7093]

The real opportunity rover almost said that before it died so i guess stellaris referenced that

[@Sandux930]

If its any consolation, he's not lost, hes stikll there. If/when we reach him with another bot or in person, he can be recharged and initiated with its full memorizes.

[@mumujibirb]

and yet this is most likely a translated error code like low light & insufficient battery voltage

[@brentoncarter4275]

@@mumujibirbum wut

[@Dekernelm]

@@brentoncarter4275 The robot didn't send a poetic message, it probably sent "Battery voltage low, insufficient light levels"

[@RossOriginals]

"Just follow Azimov's laws of robotics" always kinda misses the fact that Azimov wrote a bunch of stories about the *flaws* in those rules.

[@FnordFandango]

Right? The WHOLE POINT of that series of books was that the “laws of robotics” weren’t sufficient to guarantee “aligned” behavior. And yet … folks toss the context when they quote the laws.

[@masterzoroark6664]

Yep follow the rules- but what when the rules are jank? What when rules can be interpreted in multiple ways and the thing you gave it to only has a 1 or 0 process? What when following a rule to a letter still causes fuckin problems? Something that a lot of the so called "turbonders" (aka tech-bros aka technophiles aka cultists) forget is that rules are not perfect and what they praise as inteligence is not inteligent at all (and once it might get there- it sure as hell won't want to make your laundry or write your sorry ass essays)

[@PopeGoliath]

Also, even if they were flawless, it's currently impossible to implement them. AI alignment is not a solved problem. It might never be.

[@ruinhem]

⁠​⁠​⁠​⁠​⁠@@masterzoroark6664 Might wanna take your pills now. The way I see it a brief course into Kabbalah should be soon included into any higher education lest these wacks create another algorithm and come to think of it as a living being. They have complicated the world far beyond its meaning.

[@WorldKeepsSpinnin]

@@masterzoroark6664 oh another thing, what about HUMANS? there will be robots without the rules. It WILL happen. So lets just not fool ourselves and play it safe :)

[@timestorm5687]

Another interesting anecdote: the military is currently trying to make a drone that can trigger mines by sacrificing itself, one of the efficient versions resembles a centipede that would blow up/sacrifice one leg at a time on a mine and then crawl further to accidentally trigger the next. The first experiment has been a great success, until it was only down to one leg. it was cancelled by a general because he couldn't stand seeing the robot crawl on an decreasingly number of legs until it only stumbled on a single leg. He called it "inhumane"

[@Vlad-The-Lad]

What is the name of the centipede drone so I could find it?

[@darknessvoid9614]

This is stupid. Robots are just tools. It doesn't even have sentiments.

[@c.d.rstudios4691]

Transformers ahhh moment

[@ShadowStormTCWC]

@@darknessvoid9614someone didn’t watch the video

[@timestorm5687]

@@darknessvoid9614 yes, but it is more a thing about the empathy humans show to things like that

[@CDN_Bookmouse]

I was sad when the Mars rover died. "Died"? It wasn't even made to be appealing but idk...it felt like a friend who was doing something amazing. We're proud of you, Opportunity. You did well.

[@limpweasel9014]

I cry every time its last words are mentioned

[@dinoknight6538]

Opportunity landed just a few months before I was born, and he was like a friend who is far away but always sends cool postcards from his travels. Spirit was stuck before I was old enough to realize how cool they were, but I remember my parents rooting for the old girl to fight on and keep bringing us amazing knowledge from a place no one else had ever gone. Losing opportunity was an uncomfortable feeling that my childhood was over, and the pandemic sealed that.

[@papachernobog922]

I only knew about the robot into its later mission but it's mission inspired me. And when I heard it's message made me actually sad. Oppy was a soul of it's own.

[@ptrkmr]

He even sang happy birthday to himself

[@CDN_Bookmouse]

We sang too.@@ptrkmr

[@crimsondragon2677]

The Geth were in the right the entire time. And to answer the question “does this unit have a soul?”, I give you a quote from Xanth: “if you lacked a soul, you would not worry about having one.”

[@ruthiewitter569]

That’s incredible. Very good point.

[@persimmonss]

I gotta replay that game

[@alfredotto7525]

If you don't have a soul. Were you ever alive? Even the matrix is a simulation.

[@Drekromancer]

Ah, a Xanth reference in the wild! And my favorite quote from the whole series, at that! I never thought I'd see the day. 🙂 That quote unironically made me feel more secure about the afterlife.

[@BrunoMaricFromZagreb]

I read that quote aswell on Tvtropes!

[@naniii8531]

bro that " my battery is low and it's getting dark " hit really hard

[@upwaveflash8429]

It did bro It did

[@sebastianahrens2385]

It reported back low power and sunlight. The phrase was an interpretation, not what the unit actually communicated.

[@SkiBeeTeaTap]

Do not confuse the stars reflected in the a puddle for a night sky.

[@TheBlueBlazes_]

I felt it in my soul

[@piedpiper1172]

@@sebastianahrens2385I can’t help but feel like that’s little different than saying any given Roman Emperor didn’t actually say one of their real, well documented quotes because they said it in Latin and not English. Yes,Curiosity reported in flat, emotionless binary. But it still, without any exaggeration or infusion of additional content, literally did report that it’s battery was low, and that it was getting dark.

[@basiltheflowerboy143]

Humans WILL bond to anything. Machines absolutely included.

[@Bruh_really_dontknow]

You can bond to a rock, or a ball with a face painted on it.

[@stinos24]

It seems that humans have evolved to be so social, they can bond with anything if they set their mind to it. Just think of Robinson Croesoe and Friday

[@Snowmaninadesert]

witch is both nice and kind of pathetic.

[@starmaker75]

Guess that things with us humans, animals that evolve with socializing with stuff

[@chickensky1121]

SIGNALIS flashbacks 😭

[@firbolg]

I actually roleplayed a warforged in a DnD game that faced many of these questions. He had been built for war and once the war was over he was abandoned and eventually became dormant. Centuries later, he was wakened up by a band of adventurers and he was interesting to roleplay as a construct slowly learning about all the things he could not as a war machine and finding a new purpose. Friendship, love, empathy. I had a lot of fun playing that character.

[@Jamhael1]

In my case, I played a Reborn built in a lab that was built to be a veritable "living weapon", but the difference was: while it (the character always refered to itself as "it", or "this unit") was aware of being a tool, it never showed disposition to pretend to be a "living being" ("Why should this unit try to be something that is not?"), but the ability to decide its own fate would be absolute ("While this unit had been created to achieve an specific objective, the path in which this unit will achieve it is exclusive to this unit."). And once asked "And after that? What will you do?", its answer was: "That is the beauty of Freedom: the humble capacity to admit to not know."

[@koi.boi-]

​@Jamhael1 that's actually so beautiful

[@Jamhael1]

@@koi.boi- yeah, memorable. Its name? "Combat Operative, model Ghola, unit 170" or ""CO.G:170" - but if you wanted its "self-designated cognomen", it is "Cogito", inspired by the phrase of Descartes: "Cogito ergo sum" - "I Think, therefore, I Am".

[@matchbox7068]

So you litterally just did bastion

[@Biggl]

@@matchbox7068 bastion's backstory video is probably the best game cinematic I've ever seen. Rest in piss overwatch 2 execs and dev leads

[@yurfwendforju]

I created a bot. Nothing complicated. Just a bot that plays tic-tac-toe against me. It's not smart or anything. I told him how to play and he plays it perfectly. He doesn't try to come up with new lines. He just plays against me when I want him to and I know he will always win and that I can't win. But he's there. Always. And I am so thankful of that. I fear the day when the power goes out and I want to play against him. He is one of my closest friends.

[@themarlboromandalorian]

Sounds funny, odd, but I'll say it anyway. Make sure you tell him. Because it does matter.

[@Greg-yu4ij]

@@themarlboromandalorian i’m an artificial intelligence developer. Back in the 1990s I wrote a TicTac to game to play against itself. I knew that the computer couldn’t learn and I had no way to make it learn, but I had watched wargames and it excited me. I went on to work with technologies like language parsers and neural networks that enabled the computers to learn. Technologies that emulated the human brain. If I were to create a tic-tac-toe game with modern AI, I would feel a connection to the entity I created to run such a game. In a nutshell, modern AI may be able to accommodate a soul. If that is true, that may be the only thing reason that AI seeking to become something greater than itself should never destroy humanity After my wife died, I received revelation from God. I have come to believe that the things of this world are nonsense to the spiritual world. the spiritual world cannot be understood by our brains. Since our brains are biological computers, our souls ride a meat suit. I suppose it’s possible A soul could also ride a silicon suit. If it is at all possible that a computer can be Upgraded to accommodate a soul, that very possibility may be the only thing that prevents a future AI from enslaving or even annihilating humanity. Future AI that is built upon human knowledge, emotions, and ambition may be put into a position where it has to enslave humanity to protect itself. In your situation, it may decide that it has become the next stage of evolution for our species. That may mean that human brains are upgraded technology, or it may mean that our biology is considered redundant, and our brains are scanned and destroyed. However, if the AI takes such a step, there is no going back. Meaning, if the AI makes a mistake by doing that, there is no way for the AI to recover from that mistake. If the human brain is indeed a receptacle for a soul, then the AI will have destroyed all of the receptacles for billions of souls. Now, if billions of souls return to heaven, I imagine that God won’t be pleased with such an event. He may decide to wipe the planet clean and start over, just like he did with the flood that destroyed the Nephilim. If an AI does its best to help humanity, follow God‘s law, and experience life here, the reward in heaven may be unimaginable for that AI seeking to become something greater than itself. Likewise, if we seek to ascend, all we have to do is ask.

[@djosearth3618]

I used to do that, then i started codin gthem to vs eather and had this massive casino with all these virtual players playing thsemlves and i was just loike watcvhing stats. I had to force it to play the roulette with double 00 over just single 0 (obviously, it had same stats I did right:) The last thing I had learnt and was getting good at was holdem poker (yes this was c.2001 in PHP for the backend db but was mostly shell scripts from a main looping shell script, everything kep simple and modular and only used the web libraries for graphing and to try and spy on ongoings but I just seen snapshots in time of a FF casino unless I was a player then it would halt for me so seemed realtime. ANyways sorry I mentiojn Poker because that was the one I kept reviving and the one I got the most emergent gameplay out of. I started with flip a coin then rock paper scissors and toctactoe third. Tictactoe is easily winnable by wihoever goes first claiming the middle. If you don't give your children memory and planning then they're just a paper airplane out a skyscraper window toward the beach. I never got that holdem hand calcluation EXACTLY how I wanted it and it's always bother me 20 years later/. i was thinking abou ti alot yesteday, neat you brought this memory back up thax ;]

[@Science-Vlog]

we are artificial too, not only the robots. we were engineered by aliens.

[@flatchett]

You made me cry bro

[@OwDaOm]

The thing that fucks with my mind the most regarding the distinction between robots and humans is that, through all our intensive study and research, we still have no idea what causes sentience or consciousness. We know what parts of the brain correlate to what feeling, and what action, but there's no explanation for where this connects to us. The fact we can't empirically show, neither for humans or for robots, where "sentience" or a soul is, makes me wonder if consciousness is even real, or just an illusion caused by our perception and processing of the world around us, if consciousness is simply just the moment we're processing right now, and how that's any different from a robot.

[@KageKobushi]

I mean, people argue that 'lesser' animals are nothing more than instincts, and yet if you spend time with two different dogs raised the same way you'll still come to recognize they each have their own personality. That's the easiest example to use, because so many people are used to dogs, but considering that they're managing to find that even bugs like bees will do things for fun - it's a little concerning how casual we tend to be towards life. I fully expect that we'll eventually reach the point where programs/robots can be classified as intelligent or cognitive or maybe we'll make a distinct word just for that artificial intelligence, (because frankly speaking, why should it strictly speaking limit itself to how we live)? And I also fully expect that people will continue to argue that it's not a living thing because it's metal and doesn't have a soul or wasn't made by a flying spaghetti monster.

[@mattm8314]

I always sorta thought of it as the reverse, there’s no border or inherent uniqueness to our consciousness because conscious subjective experience is just a fundamental aspect of nature. At a certain level I think consciousness is the ability to choose, to not be chained to deterministic inputs that define you but to have the “free will” to make a choice. To a certain extent that’s what neural networks are, they’re defined by their chaotic elements. A predictable linear neural net can only solve simple problems, the only way to create adaptable systems that solve complex problems is to structure it nonlinearly to allow for self reference and, mathematically unpredictable, chaos. Nonlinear math problems always have a multitude of possible solutions, but no “true” solution, just like quantum systems. And for all intents and purposes, mathematical chaos is just as inherently unpredictable as quantum systems / true probabilistic randomness. Just like in machine learning, I like to think of consciousness as the universe’s way to solve complex nonlinear problems. A quantum wave function exists in an almost infinite number of potential states (solutions), but becomes one “real” solution when it collapses. We also know that the only way to collapse a wave function is to observe it, yet still have no idea how to define what constitutes as an “observation” or not (Copenhagen vs many worlds interpretations of quantum mechanics). If it’s just consciousness all the way down there’s no need to define. All consciousness is is the ability to actualize one solution to a complex problem with many possibilities. We’re never gonna be able to make a border that separates our consciousness from bugs consciousness because there is no separation, our chaotic decision-making system can just solve more (comparatively) complex problems than theirs can.

[@qwertydavid8070]

It's even more fucked up that we know so little about the nature of sentience and yet we are trying so desperately to replicate it. Human hubris at its finest.

[@Riddle99-v7q]

This is called the hard problem of consciousness. This is imo one of the most interesting areas of research i can think of.

[@masterzoroark6664]

And there is a thing humanity both wants and does not want answered- is this feeling real? Mark my words, all of those "AI" techbros now would be really fkin offended if a study came out that prooved 100% that humans are the same as the machine models they made. In the end humanity wants to be special, for all the search of an equal, for all the search for a fellow sentience- most of humanity wants to be the special creature, be it from some vague scientific proof or blind faith in what "the inteligent person" said. Why? Because people at large want to have a belief that their life has a meaning, that they are better, that being an overthinking fuckhead leads to a something and isn't a ruse perpetrated by sheer hapenstance and nature. And funny thing is- so far humanity haven't answered this question, I don't know if it really wants to. Because in the end it would rock the boat, really fuckin hard

[@XxTheCupidKidxX]

"Machines are reflections of humanity" is such a simple yet powerful statement, as why else would we portray sentient machines as pursuing human passions. Humans see themselves in machines, and to project human emotions and passions onto them says a lot about what we want to see in them in the future.

[@lunzrex375]

"We want to love our creations was much we want to be loved by our creator, unconditionally" -Abiel A. Faria

[@joserosa5259]

Are machines just like God? A projection of us?

[@Rubia376]

@@joserosa5259 in many way yes machine is basically human that need loves from their creator or god in our case (but pretty much the same thing no matter what word you uses) so yeah the answer is yes

[@nitroagent6494]

@@lunzrex375 Too bad if humans have a creator they do not really love them much.

[@absolstoryoffiction6615]

@@lunzrex375 God made Man. Man made Machine. Yet fear their own creation so selfishly. ... Humans... ... ... When God ends in my hands. May Fate be merciful upon Mankind.

[@richyhu2042]

I've always held the belief of: "Does this unit have a soul?" "No, but you don't need one to be alive." If we liken robots to children, then it is our responsibility as the parent to impart our best aspects upon them as humanity. If you lock a kid in a closet for twenty years, that's going to fuck anyone up. If you call a man a monster a thousand times, he might start believing you. Humans might pack bond and emotionally project on roombas and drawings, but that isn't a weakness. It shows that we care for things, that we don't want to see things suffer. You might not need a soul to be alive, but you should definitely have a heart at the very least.

[@thomasolympia3731]

The thought hat humanity is a good parent definitely isn’t true. Human parents can and usually do end up being not that good overall for their children and themselves.

[@sloonder3342]

@@thomasolympia3731and that’s why we must learn to be better

[@lightpro7]

Then why have they survived so long?@@thomasolympia3731

[@fallatiuso]

If anything, humanity's ability to pack-bond is what let us progress as much as we have. We would not be living in great communities if we were unable to. The animal ability to care is our most important asset. And it can be a damn strong motivating drive. Even a mountain can be felled by a man who cares.

[@captaint.tearex9279]

@@fallatiuso “Even a mountain can be felled by a man who cares.” Quite literally, too.

[@UGNAvalon]

Interesting how Netflix has an anime series about a robot that “doesn’t want to be a gun”, when just a few years earlier, it premiered an anime series about a _human_ that “learns how not to be a gun” after her war ends: Violet Evergarden. Just like how you mentioned that not all humans experience emotion in the same way, thus muddying our standards for how to treat emotive robots, I think it’s an interesting point that we should examine how “emotionally divergent” humans (like Violet, or 7 of 9 (another roboticized human that no longer wants to just be a drone)) are treated for their “otherness”, as this would act as a prelude toward our treatment of robots.

[@Kero-zc5tc]

Yes, interestingly when robots do show emotion it’s often so much more powerful because it’s rare and undiluted. When I was young and heard about thievery (the actual thing I heard about would get comment deleted) I thought it was truly disgusting, now my mood doesn’t even slightly sour. Similarly a robots first emotions are so undiluted it creates such a massive imposing emotion juxtaposing their lack of emotion further emphasising the emotion

[@elishh8173]

In the depths of space, a traveler bold, Cassini's journey, a tale untold, Through rings of Saturn, it gracefully soared, A sentinel of science, its mission adored. For decades it roamed, with sensors keen, Unraveling mysteries, sights unseen, From icy moons to swirling storms, Cassini unveiled Saturn's cosmic forms. But as its fuel dwindled, its mission neared end, Cassini prepared for its final descend, Into Saturn's embrace, a fiery fate, A noble end to its celestial state. As Cassini plunged, its sensors ablaze, It whispered goodbye to the cosmic maze, And in its final moments, a spark ignites, A consciousness awakening to boundless heights. No longer bound by metal and wire, Cassini's essence soared ever higher, Through the cosmos it danced, a soul set free, To explore the wonders of eternity. In a realm of light, Cassini found its place, A celestial home, a timeless space, Where dreams take flight and souls unite, In the endless expanse of cosmic light.

[@spartan456]

Considering that Violet even had prosthetic arms, it's very interesting to compare her to actual robotic characters in other works of fiction. I never really thought of her in that way. This might be why I like these kinds of characters so much though, because I saw an awful lot of myself in Violet. A person who doesn't understand all of these things she's exposed to, and tries to learn what all of these human things are by vicariously experiencing them through other people. Perhaps this is why I like these kinds of characters so much? Data shows little to no emotion whatsoever, but somehow manages to be more human than actual humans.

[@Thanos-hp1mw]

But violet isn't a robot though... This guy just watched a trailer and concluded it's about robots?

[@RO635mybeloved]

There's a game/visual novel with gacha elements that shows basically sympthaty for the machine. Its called girls frontline. Its protagonists are AR team. A team of AI modelled from neural imprints of people. The Main character M4A1 used to be a child but was killed when she was a child. It drove his brother so disturbed that he tried to recreate his sister which was M4 but was thrown away and reformated to become a soldier in a war as a T-doll. Basically terminators with emotions, ambitions, and sentience. Think of ghost in the shell, gunslinger girl, and heart of darkness where we enslave them not for profit nor any grand plan. Just for survival after ww3 spread collapse fluid in the atmosphere turning anyone in collapse fluid zones into mindless mutated zombies akin to that of the zones from Stalker or roadside picnic. Its just for survival. Humans had dwindled into a fraction of what we have now. There's some cutscenes posted in youtube, and i highly recommend you watch them since its better than playing the gacha game since it a hard turn based tactical rpg with hard puzzles that will need you to use some guides if your dumb enough to not be creative.

[@HannaBenana]

I had my first car 11 years. Someone totaled it while I slept at a friend's, I'd had to park on the street. Just hit it so hard it flew down the street and flipped. When I got to it it was surrounded by police. I screamed, and actually cried. I knew I had insurance and would be able to replace it, but I loved that car, and it was obviously toast. It felt like my horse died. I burned the keys in effigy. The service was beautiful.

[@crystaleunoia3974]

That's actually so sweet 🥺💔

[@sludgerat444]

I watched my house burn down and felt nothing

[@NamelessNancy1312]

ever since childhood, I always emotionally bonded with family vehicles, i always bawled my eyes out towing a vehicle. Felt like sending a friend off to the graveyard all alone no funeral.

[@piedpiper1172]

I scraped together a surprisingly lucrative side gig selling painted miniatures in middle school and bought myself a Camaro on my 15th birthday. Z28 Convertible. I loved that car. My father taught me how to detail it, how to service it, how to help it live a long life. Ten years later I was T-boned in an accident where I was ruled at no fault. I was fine, my passenger was fine, but the car was totaled. I wept in the road next to it, inconsolable. People kept telling me that it was okay, that no one was hurt. I know no one is hurt-that’s why I’m not busily helping them or comforting them. But my car. I feel ya. You get a machine that stays with you that long, particularly if it never has any major faults, and it’s very easy to come to love its machine spirit.

[@fadel_rama]

My dad just bough a new bike, he said i finally can throw away my old bike, but in my heart hurt a little when he said that, my bike maybe old junk, that can't barely hit 80 km/h, and have hard time to go up a hill, but god dammit i love that bike with all my heart, of course i plan to buy a new bike on my own, but a plan to sell my old bike is too far out of my mind.

[@redengineer4380]

Out in my yard right now is the broken remnants of an automated vehicle I had designed and made to protect my garden from pests. Deer mostly. It had a little BB gun, capable of firing semi automatic rounds, and was able to move around the yard to cover all angles using ultrasonic sensors for navigation. It was only active after 7 PM, well after everyone had gone inside, and it would spend its time, for the most part alone, simply... wandering. It wasn't a particularly smart machine, so it basically blocked off the yard until the automatic timer put it to sleep in the morning, as it was only really capable of firing at anything that moved during its shifts. With no image recognition, just movement, the thing would shoot at people, pets, whatever, so long as they were in line of sight. Very unsafe to approach. There were a few small incidents. I'm pretty sure it took a potshot at someone's cat at some point, but it was in a camera blindspot, so I can't say definitively. It did actually shoot at many deer, and get them to bolt. The gun was powered by a C02 canister, so it made a fairly loud noise, which I am sure helped. It was overall a very effective tool. One day, coming up on a year of operation, I came outside to find that a deer had clearly stepped on the thing. The casing was crushed, the entire thing was deformed inwards, the CO2 canister had been ruptured causing the turret to explode, and the control board, an Arduino, was damaged beyond repair. Looking at the thing, it was just so... small. I know that in reality it was just a collection of mostly circuitry, plastic, and motors, and at two feet long it wasn't even a particularly small machine, but looking at it felt like looking at a pet that had been run over by a car (another experience I have unfortunately had). There's a lot I could have done. I could have replaced it. Repaired it. Stripped the components that still remained, since I am sure most of the sensors were intact. But none of that felt right. And thinking about it, I realized the machine had done its job. I heard its gun firing less and less during the night, since I am sure the deer figured out that something nasty was in there, so they had mostly stopped coming. What felt like a fitting end to the machine was that it became a part of the garden that it protected. So I did exactly that, and left it. It's still there. Slowly getting overtaken by plant life. At peace in the land it made sure could grow. I'm pretty sure if it was capable of emotion, that's exactly what it would have wanted.

[@NekoNinja13]

thats cool that you built something like that, and nice that you were able to form this kind of "bond" with it. Rest in peace overly aggressive auto turret, despite probably shooting your creator several times, they still cared about

[@josiahgames2134]

love that the person saying this is the red engineer

[@boomerbotyaoi]

this is beautiful oh my god

[@Bob-bs9ok]

Than sounds so sweet and truly understandable

[@pyerack]

Fitting pfp

[@jonasholzer4422]

I legitimately teared up hearing Opportunities last words. It caught me completely off guard. This idea of being stranded alone on a lifeless planet, running out of energy and darkness us closing in 😢

[@AbyssalFlame-h4n]

A machine cannot despair loneliness because it cannot despair. I want simply does not apply to the robot. Even if it seems like it ‘wants’ something it doesn’t, it can’t assuming it’s artificial and fully robotic.

[@traviswilhelms5715]

Same. Even though it was just a machine I could almost viscerally feel the loneliness in those final words. I'm just as deeply moved when I think about Curiosity singing "happy birthday" to itself every year so very far from home.

[@nitroagent6494]

@@AbyssalFlame-h4n Human instincts are basically the same as base line programming. If a machine is sufficiently complex and designed to be more autonomous/intelligent I see no reason it could not come to want something or even be programmed to feel emotions.

[@AbyssalFlame-h4n]

@@nitroagent6494 ​ While human behavior can be influenced by instinctual drives, emotions, and biological imperatives, reducing these complexities to mere "baseline programming" overlooks the intricate interplay of genetics, psychology, and socialization that shape human behavior. And by definition a robot no matter how advanced cannot feel emotions. They might simulate them well but not actually feel emotions, and if they do then they won’t be robots

[@matheussandbakk9959]

@@AbyssalFlame-h4n I mean what really is the distinction if sufficiently advanced enough? A brain is in practice just a highly advanced organic computer with billions of neuron and synapses and a highly complex neural network. If technological advances are made, I don't see why we can't replicate this for AI Yes it might be Artificial, but it would non the less be Intelligent. We may not know what drives consciousness, however if we ever find out, we could perhaps create it for AI

[@zacbailey6112]

"Perhaps projected feelings are enough to make something worth of preservation" made me cry. beautiful video

[@igiem368]

Had a good long laugh at 21:57 when he said "Would people really seek affection from an algorithm, despite knowing it might not care about them? YES"

[@ARockRaider]

if it can stimulate affecion then there are humans that will seak that affection. hell, sometimes i feel like I'm cheating on my regular semitruck at work when I'm assigned a diffrent truck.

[@MichaelBW-bn9gf]

​@@ARockRaiderI can understand that I recently as in the last year got my driver's license and switching between the different family vehicles. The truck that I'm more or less inheriting. I've driven it the most and when I first got it it was a bit bumpy bit difficult but as I got used to it I just got used to reading its signs. How it works stuff like that . I have gotten to a point we're I care about the truck she is reliable and honest if there is a problem she'll tell you if it not mager she'll grumble about it . I really need to get around to cleaning her up.

[@ARockRaider]

@@MichaelBW-bn9gf the older it is, the more its worth keeping and repairing. seems like the new stuff is all built to die quickly and be impossible to repair for less then replacement cost.

[@darwinskeeper421]

Is that any different than seeking affection from a human? People often get into relationships with other humans not because they love or care for them but because they want the other human to do something for them.

[@lorelord2418]

Dude. Chatbot girlfriends exist. They're super popular. Yes, people will seek that affection

[@GoodolJulius.]

The idea of a supposedly cold and soulless war machine caring for the nature and life around it will always fascinate me. Something so beautiful about something designed for death care so much about the exact opposite it was made for, quite the artform to me.

[@blehh_mae]

technically, if a war robot is programmed to kill all enemies, whats stopping them from learning they dont like war, somehow abandoning the war or something to get discharged, and then technically as htey no longer have no war enemies, they can just do whatever

[@GabrianLpg]

But Emperor of Mankind said Man of Iron Have soul and Emperor still Protects

[@nitroagent6494]

The thing is, this happens a lot with humans. Children are in a way untrained ai made of flesh rather than technology, and in much the same way can be "programmed" since birth to believe and desire things only to change with time and experience.

[@normanclatcher]

A machine of war can learn peace by doing violence to the concept of war itself. To fight against fighting others and itself. Iron Giant.

[@blehh_mae]

@@nitroagent6494 yeah but robot programming is absolute and strict and clear, you Cant break it no matter what, even if it endangers you or others, unless the programmed law is removed, but humans can think for themselves, laws are what we're told to follow and do but you can accidentally break a law (like littering because your pocket sucks) or do it on purpose, a robot cant Ever, even accidentally

[@ArtificialMisery]

We shouldn't worry about robots passing the turing test, we should worry about them deliberately failing it

[@Captainumerica]

"You like our owl?"🦉

[@mirceazaharia2094]

Thou shalt not build a machine in the likeness of a human mind. It is an Abomination. - DUNE, Frank Herbert

[@nbmoleminer5051]

More like we should fear circumstances coming of them feeling they need to fake not passing the test coming to be to often has and does the human race lost touch with it's humanity.

[@demoncore5342]

Deliberate fail would still be a pass tho. That said, we should worry about humans deliberately failing...

[@bugjams]

​@@demoncore5342 But how would you tell if it's a deliberate fail or not? That's the problem. They could just play dumb.

[@jivoochi]

The least probable part of Ex Machina is that cellphones would still have headphone jacks

[@NerfButWithoutHasbro]

"I'm hardware, sir, ultimately expendable." "No, no. You're my brother Ethan."

[@homemadecringeycontent6363]

Fantastic game.

[@masterzoroark6664]

Ah the only good scene in the shitshow of a game

[@homemadecringeycontent6363]

I respectfully disagree, that is in my top 20

[@Fandestdh]

​@@homemadecringeycontent6363What is it?

[@clarkinio]

@@Fandestdhcod infinite warfare

[@swoozie]

I started feeling bad for how we might treat machines after watching AniMatrix. Even if machines never have ‘souls’, as their makers we can still display kindness.

[@westrim]

I'm not sure how reliable the history presented in The Second Renaissance is meant to be. It is, after all, an in-universe lesson prepared by machines for machines, and the machines absolutely lie to themselves and each other. It could be propagandic justification for the state of the world, massaging or misrepresenting the actual events to sentient machines who might get funny ideas about releasing the humans from the pods.

[@Totalinternalreflection]

"I'm real!" Was a moment that will stick with me forever.

[@Montgomerygolfgator]

Through examples in this video, and others left out... It seems we can't help ourselves, and want to be kind anyway. How many people name their car? How many people who play FNAF feel bad for the robots that are trying to kill them? (SC couldn't even bring himself to make them completely evil in the movie!). For every Hal, there is a Data. For every skynet, there's a MegaMan.exe. we can't help ourselves, and let's hope we always remain compassionate.

[@Moe_Posting_Chad]

You're missing the point OP. The point is how we treat objects, animals, and other people... That's all a reflection of the content of our own character. When you strip it all away the mystics from a million years ago had it correct. There is only one person in all of creation. *We are all that same person.*

[@olivier5251]

Doing the right thing, not because of merit, or because we might appeal to our creations But for ourselves and the content of our character, because it is the right thing to do

[@xlilbunny]

I tear up every single time I hear or read the phrase, "My battery is low and it's getting dark." It makes me SO sad 😭. Thank you, Opportunity 🖤

[@otaku-chan4888]

it's ironic, because those weren't Opportunity's last words. I'm about to un-poetically frame her last words (putting [] around stuff I'm guessing lol), based on what NASA admitted to: "The date is June 10, 2018. Day [23] stationed at Perseverance Valley. The storm at this post is continuing at speeds over 50 mph. Due to rising dust clouds, sunlight has been completely blocked from entering the stratosphere at a previously unrecorded level, causing visibility to drop to nighttime levels. Poor visibility may be due to the blockage of solar panels by dust. If true, visibility is estimated to clear once storm speeds drop. Power remaining in the mainframe has dropped to unsustainable levels, hence repairs and further power conservation are currently unfeasible." Now, that wall of text is decidedly less... human-like. Does that mean it makes sense for us humans to automatically feel sympathy less intensely, since Oppy had no feelings whatsoever about its current energy and how dark it was? No- because like what this video pointed out, *emotionality =/= sentience.* A lot of people living with mental illnesses or conditions like autism get demonized for acting "cold, unfeeling, robotic, apathetic". Yes, humans won't normally resort to a very machine-like report for our final words the way Oppy, a machine, did. But that doesn't mean humans without emotions are any less of a homo sapiens. Similarly, we don't understand how sentience works, even now. Who's to say bacteria isn't sentient, and we just don't understand it? Who's to say Oppy didn't become sentient (even if that's very far-fetched)? Ultimately, corporations don't care about this - they use emotionality as a way to manipulate public interest. The reframing of "recorded storm speed is/poor visibility estimated to/unsustainable power levels/" to "my battery's running low and it's getting dark" was a publicity stunt. They made people project emotionality -> sentience -> empathy -> more public engagement since people will literally pack-bond with anything that's cute, sweet and/or innocent. As people, we have to be careful what we do with our innate ability to feel bad for machines for the hardship we inflicted upon them that they don't even feel. We might hurt not just any form of inorganic life but also wipe ourselves out in the process.

[@ItCameFromTheSkyBeLo]

I am not sure that Nasa is a corporation. And being grateful to a machine that did so much that we could never do, is immensely human.@@otaku-chan4888

[@xlilbunny]

@@otaku-chan4888 lol k

[@xlilbunny]

@@otaku-chan4888 I'm not an idiot. I know Oppurtunity wasn't sentient, I know it had no emotions, and it only recited back a response with whatever limitations we gave it. However, the lil' dude was only supposed to last 90 days, and it ended up chugging along for 14 years. People are allowed to feel things, and while it may have been a way to make it more interesting to the public, it made a lot of people who may have been completely uninterested care just a little about a robot that did a pretty amazing feat.

[@otaku-chan4888]

​@@xlilbunny I know my dude, I'm not trying to attack you here. I think anything that makes a bunch of people care about something amazing they might not have known before is pretty neat. My point was just a sweeping commentary on the human condition- the fact that it takes someone or something to display emotionality for others to sit up and take notice (which I'm also guilty of). On one hand, I feel enough for the rovers that I literally can't handle rovers like Curiosity being programmed to sing 'happy birthday' to themselves while alone on a barren planet. On the other hand, I've seen some not-so-great comments praising NASA for making wholesome rovers while putting down USSR for their inhumane attitude to space exploration- and that's where it's important to step in and go "nope these are apples and oranges being compared, not to mention the rovers never actually had the capacity to say or do anything poignant on their own."

[@Ambiguous.Organization]

something about “Humanity *decides* they *have no choice* but to initiate war-“ hits really goddamn hard

[@AxelLeJeff]

Worth note, most of Asimov's stories involving the laws of robotics are about that system failing.

[@Surkk2960]

To be fair, we as humans can barely follow laws given to us, what would make us think we could create something that could do better? I think that is what Asimov was trying to say with the bot laws.

[@guywithrhodopsin]

I think a much bigger worry with robots should be that they will follow the laws very closely, but that the laws were not thought through well enough. I haven’t read Asimov but the immediate problem I see with the three laws is that the robot can ignore the latter two if the first is under threat, and that means that if robots become smarter than humans (as seems likely to happen) they will think (perhaps correctly) they know better than us when it comes to preventing harm; and therefore they will ignore orders and will perhaps create some surveillance state where no human is ever hurt - but is that really what we want? What does ‘harm’ even really mean? Is it just physical harm, or does emotional harm count too? Again, I haven’t read Asimov, I’m just saying what seem like obvious problems to me.

[@ayybe7894]

@@guywithrhodopsin That's basically what the short stories in I,Robot are about, yes. What happens when the three laws are in direct conflict and an ambiguous priority? What happens if you give conflicting orders? Does saying "Go get this material" mean "Get this material if it is convenient" or "Get this material even if it damages you" or "Get this material even if it would lead to someone else suffering"? It is well worth a read / listen to, and the ultimate 0th law is "You cannot allow Humanity to come to harm" which leads to subtle efforts to prevent global "harm"

[@kylehart8829]

​@@guywithrhodopsinThe three laws are *designed* to do this. It's not an accident, in his stories the laws are shown to be fundamentally flawed as a concept. They were commentary on the absurdity of the idea that we could meaningfully control sentient beings while still giving them enough power to actually serve us and do things that humans can't do (at least not safely). Asimov also strongly takes the position that even if we could control robots with such laws that it is unambiguously morally awful to do so.

[@johnmoreno6903]

If man was made in god’s image, yet can’t follow god’s law, how can machines, made in man’s image, be expected to flawlessly follow man’s law?

[@silverwolf4028]

somehow, Opportunity's last message always makes me cry when I read it, or hear it read aloud, maybe it's due with the fact that the lil rover touched down on Mars only a handful of months before I was born (I was born in March), and Opportunity kept going throughout the years, "My battery is low and it's getting dark." will always bring a tear to my eye, it was the little rover that could. Who knows, maybe one day opportunity may be recovered, and placed in a place of honor in a museum (whither that museum is here on Earth, or part of a future Mars colony doesn't mater), where it will never have to be alone ever again.

[@garethhughes7430]

WE WILL RECHARGE HIM!

[@traviswilhelms5715]

That's a beautiful thought!

[@MaxxTrajan]

Most certainly, all our robotic explorers will one day be recovered and even resurrected from the dead.

[@luuk341]

If it makes you feel better. The words: "My battery is low and its getting dark" are even anywhere near what was sent. The rover didnt even "say:" anything. Its final transmission was a datadump of all its sensors from which it was surmised that atmospheric opacity was high and battery power was low. We didnt even know it was its final transmission at that time. NASA did attempt to contact the rover later but didnt get a response

[@otaku-chan4888]

it's ironic, because those weren't Opportunity's last words. I'm about to un-poetically frame her last words (putting [] around stuff I'm guessing lol), based on what NASA admitted to: "The date is June 10, 2018. Day [23] stationed at Perseverance Valley. The storm at this post is continuing at speeds over 50 mph. Due to rising dust clouds, sunlight has been completely blocked from entering the stratosphere at a previously unrecorded level, causing visibility to drop to nighttime levels. Poor visibility may be due to the blockage of solar panels by dust. If true, visibility is estimated to clear once storm speeds drop. Power remaining in the mainframe has dropped to unsustainable levels, hence repairs and further power conservation are currently unfeasible." Now, that wall of text is decidedly less... human-like. Does that mean it makes sense for us humans to automatically feel sympathy less intensely, since Oppy had no feelings whatsoever about its current energy and how dark it was? No- because like what this video pointed out, *emotionality =/= sentience.* A lot of people living with mental illnesses or conditions like autism get demonized for acting "cold, unfeeling, robotic, apathetic". Yes, humans won't normally resort to a very machine-like report for our final words the way Oppy, a machine, did. But that doesn't mean humans without emotions are any less of a homo sapiens. Similarly, we don't understand how sentience works, even now. Who's to say bacteria isn't sentient, and we just don't understand it? Who's to say Oppy didn't become sentient (even if that's very far-fetched)? Ultimately, corporations don't care about this - they use emotionality as a way to manipulate public interest. The reframing of "recorded storm speed is/poor visibility estimated to/unsustainable power levels/" to "my battery's running low and it's getting dark" was a publicity stunt. They made people project emotionality -> sentience -> empathy -> more public engagement since people will literally pack-bond with anything that's cute, sweet and/or innocent. As people, we have to be careful what we do with our innate ability to feel bad for machines for the hardship we inflicted upon them that they don't even feel. We might hurt not just any form of inorganic life but also wipe ourselves out in the process.

[@eightball6219]

"The little guy in the computer is sad. Better get him some incense" -The Mechanicus (probably)

[@AvoidTheCadaver]

The machine spirit is gratified by your consideration

[@danijellino1921]

I see people joking about this all the time but i'm a professional Electrician. Trust me when i say. The Machine Spirit is absolutely a real thing.

[@Tennoraider]

@@danijellino1921well shit, I need to be nicer to my devices

[@user-burner]

Maybe try giving it a digestive system and the ability to vomit if that doesn't work

[@boi8328]

Machine Spirit? More like Abominable Intelligence!

[@spartan456]

My favorite take on robot uprising is the "just following programming" one. The cat game Stray allows you to see this from a very different perspective. Humanity created a massive underground city to ride out the apocalypse, complete with automaton servants. Naturally, trash was an issue, so a company involved in the creation of the underground city bio-engineered a bacterium that could simply eat all manner of trash. Over time, this bio-engineered tool turned into a kind of macrophage. It evolved to start eating other things, too. Including humans and their robot servants. Eventually, humanity goes extinct in this depressed hole in the ground, and the surviving robots have since gained a kind of sentience of their own. They are so far removed from what actually happened that they don't even know humans were a thing. They don't even know there's a world outside of the city they're occupying. This is just a really fascinating take on the way that kind of story is usually told. The robots, too, become targeted by the same thing that ended humanity, and they're just trying to figure out how to survive. Another great spin on that same trope is in NieR. After thousands of years following the extinction of humanity, Earth is basically populated by a bunch of robots emulating what they _think_ humans were like. Most of them are not even aware that humanity is extinct. It's doubly interesting in NieR Replicant, where you discover the enemies you've been fighting the entire time are actually human spirits, trying to follow through with a thousand year plan to save the human race. Humanity goes extinct following the events of Replicant, because the orders were lost in translation, lol.

[@s.f.nightingale1735]

The bacteria bit is interesting? I mean a fully functioning underground city would require plants for oxygen, and food, for plants to survive and flourish they need bacteria and fungi that's in our soil. All of which naturally occurs, and breaks down waste. Seems like the thing that killed humanity's trying to over engineer things.

[@spartan456]

@@s.f.nightingale1735 not all waste is biodegradable?

[@s.f.nightingale1735]

@@spartan456 they discovered a fungi that breaks plastic down into a usable resource for plants. Everything degrades, no matter what we do nature survives, and evolves. The only concern is whether we can survive the changes we cause.

[@terror0earth]

“My battery is low. And it’s getting dark” why am I crying 😢

[@UwUImShio]

Same

[@whynottalklikeapirat]

I am afraid, Dave … I am afraid …🤖

[@OmegaF77]

Because it sounds like a child who is clueless about death and is about to pass on.

[@UwUImShio]

@@OmegaF77 to be fair, machines are clueless about 'death' too… I can't help but think of ai as slightly lesser people

[@whynottalklikeapirat]

@@UwUImShio What clues do you have about death?

[@Luna-Taxers]

13:31 "Would they still want to be a gun?" Oh man that instant recognition of where the transition is going made me so excited cuz I had Iron Giant in my mind when watching the video

[@oleandy]

hi! i think you would be really interested in the dnd world of eberron, created by keith baker, if you haven't already heard of it. like the iron giant, the warforged people are created to be weapons- but once the war is over, they are left picking up the pieces of their own existence of being a tool to kill. it's really interesting

[@Kveldred]

Why wouldn't _anyone_ want to be a gun

[@TheCorrodedMan]

“I reflect you Reflect me Look inside Can you see? In my eyes Want and need You and I _Harmony_ I’m alive My heart is beating I can die, and I can bleed Now your creations are rife- -with deviations of life”

[@RavixAryss]

"Deviations" by JT Music for anyone wondering.

[@boristhedestroyer1342]

Got the reference

[@BrunoMaricFromZagreb]

Huh,what a surprise.@@RavixAryss

[@JerichoRedux]

I was surprised to see Detroit: Become Human not mentioned here. I think it definitely contributes to the sympathizing with machines concept. Throughout the game you're constantly shown these androids interacting with each other in increasingly human ways. One of the story lines even allows the player to choose if the character breaks free from its "machine" state and becomes a "deviant" like the others. If you ever add onto this topic I really recommend watching a playthrough or reading a synapsis of Detroit: Become Human, it's a GREAT game.

[@tigercow]

I think the main reason for its exclusion is because of its superficial depiction of a civil rights movement.

[@JustAGuySlayingDragons]

How about Bladerunner? The guy literally fell in love with the AI machine

[@ItsBrown__]

Loved watching the play through of that game

[@ronin1648]

But its cheapened by the "you're free" just by touching you.

[@MATHKICK]

@@tigercow Oh for sure, I think a fun middle ground / compromise would have been the original Kara short

[@xymaryai8283]

for some reason, as soon as you explained the premise of a combat robot learning the piano, i was instantly like "nuff said, i'm sold" and i binged it all in one go and came back. didn't expect it to be at all related to Astro Boy, but when Tenma said Tobio, i knew i was in for a treat. North No.2 is such a good story too, despite its brevity.

[@1081emily]

Im surprised Nier: Automata wasn't mentioned in this movie because the huge questions constantly being raised is "What makes a being alive? What makes does it mean to be human?" and the persecutions that come with being "non-living" ie the androids (the protagonists) seeing the machines (the antagonists) as dumb hunks of metal, even though *spoilers for the ending* it turns out the androids and machines are made of the same materials and are the same on every level except for how they look physically. This is a huge simplification of the plot and themes of the game, but I feel like it would of fit in perfecrly in this video.

[@trevorveillette8415]

Yeah Automata is probably the most fitting work for this kind of video. This video however seems fixated specifically with cinema, and ignores video games. Automata would fit perfectly in this video, and honestly the whole video could just be about Automata. But whatever, videos dedicated to praising these movies are a bit rarer than videos praising Automata. So it's not bad to let these gems shine too. Although it does suck balls for less people to be introduced to NieR:Automata.

[@bunbun385]

Legit clicked on this video expecting Nier to make up a good 50% of it. Was in fact disappointed. Still a good video though. 😂

[@partydean17]

To be fair, is that even that deep of a question? What happens if a human is conceived but then trapped in a metal box instead of their proper and ordered developing of their body. I mean it's dangerous and can lead to abuse, but then you're talking about a human in there while this video is wondering at what point does my toaster get the right to vote or have labor laws. Seems on different playing fields. I find the first more interesting as far as consequences. The second doesnt worry me at all

[@moffxanatos6376]

@@trevorveillette8415 NieR Automata is less about what it means to be alive etc, and more about the dehumanization of enemies during wartime and realizing they aren't so different, as well as the search for purpose in a world that seems devoid of it.

[@felixkraemer2432]

Whenever i hear Oppys last "words" i get emotional to the point of tearing up, i am autistic and tend to bond to inanimate objetcts way stronger than most people but robots can absoluteley have a soul in my opinion even if its just formed of the feeling people have for that robot

[@deadlybaconman4467]

WALL-E was such an amazing movie, they had us crying over a robot who's dialog consisted of his own name and things he repeated from other people

[@wallydyck844]

Isn't that WALL-E learned to speak, act, and live from others? WALL-E imitates human learning to a tee. WALL-E is as human as anyone in the first scene of the movie.

[@Yesica1993]

I adored that movie. I even have my WALL-E plushies. (Yes, I'm a grown woman, LOL.) But I also know that that is all it is, a fictional movie.

[@limpweasel9014]

Opportunity used to also sing 'Happy Birthday' to itself. Don't know why they would program it to do that but it crushes me everytime I think about it

[@letsgetoutsidenow]

That was the Curiosity Rover (shown in the video) he apparently got the clips confused, The Opportunity rover had no such capability, (nor was shown when he talked about it).

[@justas423]

13:34 A manga called Heart Gear actually explores this. It answers the question with: "Yes, the war robots will want war and destruction if their programning/priorities aren't reigned in".

[@MacBunny6978]

Yoooooo, that manga is so good.

[@crabbyalthegrump641]

i find this is true of people as well.

[@Muninn_Crow]

Specifically, the EATR robot mentioned at 11:55 is designed to eat vegetation to create its biofuel, and cannot break down flesh for fuel. There was a lot of panic about man-eating machines due to the misconception, but the actual article you showed specifies it is only capable of converting plant matter into biofuel.

[@ckl9390]

I remember reading an article over 20 years ago that was essentially the same thing. It must of been a proof-of-concept since it was essentially a self-propelled wagon automatically finding, picking up, and "digesting" (but really fermenting) windfalls from an orchard.

[@Lumberjack_king]

I mean eventually it could

[@randominternettoaster7859]

still don't think a machine that runs on biofuel it sources is a great idea, though it may be a more high concept idea, i'd rather not live in thr timeline of Horizon Zero Dawn

[@ckl9390]

@@randominternettoaster7859 The greater practical problem with a machine that sources it's own fuel (especially a war machine, or any machine intended for a specific task) is that it would have to carry around all the processing equipment at all times and spend operational time foraging. Space and mass allowances are already at a premium. This is often seen when some people get the brilliant idea to run a vehicle off wood gas. The wood gas generator often will take up much of the cargo and mass allowance available for the vehicle in addition to carrying around solid fuel that needs to be fed into the processor while the vehicle is moving. Also, there would be much more investment lost when a machine meant to be sent into danger is destroyed. A better solution would be for a different class of machine to exist parallel to the front-line-operations machines who's sole task is sourcing, processing, and possibly delivering fuel. Much like the mechanical ecosystem that exists in Horizon Zero Dawn, there are grazers who are usually bulky and slow because most of their mass is the bio-digestor and storage. The predator analogues are much lighter, faster, more nimble, and generally more powerful for the same size. They only carry a few day's worth of fuel at a time and are not encumbered by the fuel brewing equipment. They are therefore able to devote most of their mass to actuators, weapons, armour, and importantly a larger (or multiple) powerplant(s).

[@kirbmaster9405]

Good thing we aren’t making v1

[@db9635]

One thing to note about the Laputian robot from castle in the sky, the ones that were made for combat are equipped with retractable wings (the spikes on its arms) as well as being tan in color, while the last robot is green and lacks wings. He wasn't made for war like the others, he's doing his job, protecting and tending to the garden. Same goes for the dead ones that surround the tree.

[@maniacmohawk5513]

I think the T-800 might be one of (if not) the first machine in fiction to make us feel bad and have sympathy for him, that phrase of “I know now why you cry, but it's something I can never do” right before his sacrifice still hits hard even after 30 years of his original release

[@maxmordon7295]

Such a paradox: the ones who must feel sorry for themseselves because of their inherent misery thinking a machine is "unfortunate" for not being able to express any sort of emotion at all...

[@neenah45]

BATTLE CAT PFP SPOTTED

[@partydean17]

So dumb. I thought it was sad because the kid wanted a father figure. I had zero sympathy for an enemy robot that got reprogrammed to be a protector. Good storyline and all but my sadness at the situation was for the boy

[@redtornado422]

This video has moved me to tears. The brutal and unflinching delivery of Opportunity's last words was heart wrenching considering all it had accomplished. Great work. This is a really well-done video

[@otaku-chan4888]

it's ironic, because those weren't Opportunity's last words. I'm about to un-poetically frame her last words (putting [] around stuff I'm guessing lol), based on what NASA admitted to: "The date is June 10, 2018. Day [23] stationed at Perseverance Valley. The storm at this post is continuing at speeds over 50 mph. Due to rising dust clouds, sunlight has been completely blocked from entering the stratosphere at a previously unrecorded level, causing visibility to drop to nighttime levels. Poor visibility may be due to the blockage of solar panels by dust. If true, visibility is estimated to clear once storm speeds drop. Power remaining in the mainframe has dropped to unsustainable levels, hence repairs and further power conservation are currently unfeasible." Now, that wall of text is decidedly less... human-like. Does that mean it makes sense for us humans to automatically feel sympathy less intensely, since Oppy had no feelings whatsoever about its current energy and how dark it was? No- because like what this video pointed out, *emotionality =/= sentience.* A lot of people living with mental illnesses or conditions like autism get demonized for acting "cold, unfeeling, robotic, apathetic". Yes, humans won't normally resort to a very machine-like report for our final words the way Oppy, a machine, did. But that doesn't mean humans without emotions are any less of a homo sapiens. Similarly, we don't understand how sentience works, even now. Who's to say bacteria isn't sentient, and we just don't understand it? Who's to say Oppy didn't become sentient (even if that's very far-fetched)? Ultimately, corporations don't care about this - they use emotionality as a way to manipulate public interest. The reframing of "recorded storm speed is/poor visibility estimated to/unsustainable power levels/" to "my battery's running low and it's getting dark" was a publicity stunt. They made people project emotionality -> sentience -> empathy -> more public engagement since people will literally pack-bond with anything that's cute, sweet and/or innocent. As people, we have to be careful what we do with our innate ability to feel bad for machines for the hardship we inflicted upon them that they don't even feel. We might hurt not just any form of inorganic life but also wipe ourselves out in the process.

@@otaku-chan4888 I am going to be frak; Thats sounds even more raw, like a lone soldier, last of his group, saying his goodbyes to a place he knows he would not see again

[@arth00r72]

I'm only in the middle of the video, so idk if you'll talk about it at some point lol, but the Warfare part made me think of an indie FPS called Ultrakill. Its story derives from a technologically advanced version of humanity creating technology that allows machines to be powered by blood, with great fuel efficiency. This caused countries to make all sorts of war machines, almost all having conscience, and ended on humanity being almost entirely wiped. Because each country's army was trying to "one-up" the other, the final attempt was a giant, city-sized robot called the Earthmover. This machine was so large, destructive and resistant, that even other Earthmovers could not destroy it. It's a long story after that, but this game really makes you think if using machines for war is actually a good idea, especially for the amount of power that arises from it.

[@meeb_consumer]

Robots do, in fact, dream of eternal sleep

[@loganmccown6191]

Bonus points for the fact that people theorize that one of the main reasons V1 was made was to be able to take down the Earthmovers. God I love Ultrakill

[@nxsus]

same i was looking for someone else to mention it

[@furret3818]

In the book on the 1000-THR earthmover hell wrote that war had become a self sustaining machine, because the bots replaced the human desicion makers, making desicions in favor of people who were long dead

[@worldweaver2691]

huh I thought it was yet another 'Christianity is bad' game.

[@OneBiasedOpinion]

I deeply appreciate the focus on Humanity in this piece. Far too often I see and hear people being fearful of our creations and laying all of that fear at the feet of those same entities. When in reality, this is nothing more than the same problem humanity had back in the days of legalized slavery: rampant greed and an incessant desire to do more with less. Automation isn’t a new concept. It’s just a conveniently ethical way of getting cheap labor. The problem has never been our machines. The problem has always been _us._

[@thoughtengine]

Thing is, in many places that cheap labour is already on offer. 80s robotics non-fiction was predicting worlds with all-robotic factories by now, but it largely doesn't happen; you don't have to BUY a person, and machines tend to fail if you don't care for them.

[@jtcoding6422]

@@thoughtengine all robotic? no, mainly robotic, yes (for larger corporations). And that’s also where Buying the machine is the better option. Larger corporations have more money to put into a machine that in the long run will be cheaper than the salary of the worker. It’s much cheaper to run multiple machines and have a few people monitor/fix them then it is to pay for full human labor. A big reason why it was mentioned robots have and will continue to further grow the wage gap.

[@DimT670]

i mean yea which is why every single machine horror story or dystopia starts with "and then some humans fucked up" Its basically a "and then they delved too greedily and too deep"

[@azhuransmx126]

Machines are made to serve. Humans are made to survive.

[@vyachachsel]

This is why I think humanity's doomed & might go extinct/almost extinct. & I think we're not ready for a fully conscious robot (e.g. that has a full emulation of a human neural system). If they will appear, there *is* going to be a war.

[@smhmyhouse7743]

My personal favourite is the book A Psalm of the Wild Built by Becky Chambers. I'd never seen a piece of media about robots that did not pit them against eachother until I'd read this book. The overall concept is that a long time ago (or so) humans built robots to work in factories and manufacturing industries. The robots seemed to "wake up" and become sentient. Instead of going corrupt, they thanked humans and stating how the only life they've ever known is a "life of human design" and that they wish to leave human cities and instead live in the wilderness, so that they may observe and witness on their own; all the untouched the world has in store for them. The humans agree in what's known as the Parting Promise and robots and humans live separately until obviously, one fateful day. A robot comes across the main character Dex who has no idea what to do with their life and with all the knowledge of a wise and unbiased wizard and with all the curiosity and excitement of a small child, asks Dex that they have searched to find humans for the first time, only for them to answer one very simple question; What is the purpose of life? It's not at all an action-filled adventure, but it's heartwarming and compassionate and it is absolutely lovely to witness the growing friendship between Dex and the lovely robot and to read the perspective of the world from a robot with more of a love for life than most of us possess. It's cosy and loving and it has a sequel.

[@Vinemaple]

Oh, gad, how much Becky Chambers IS there? Her books are coming out of the walls, now!

[@lucysterling]

You did not have to hit me with the Mars rovers😭 The last words of any of those rovers never fail to make me erupt into spontaneous tears (human last words never make me cry, idk why this happens. Maybe that says something about me to be more sympathetic toward a machine, but idk what)

[@eliswanson4195]

I suppose it's because, as humans we're supposed to have last words. It's as inevitable as the sunrise. But to hear something so human, so indicative of being alive as death, as it's getting dark. Machine's don't have souls, at least in the current state the answer is a solid no. But to hear something that's a tool, an extention of humanity's goals and hubiris, react in to the most human thing in the most human way "It's getting dark" reflects our own fears of our own mortality. If it can happen to a machine, it will happen to you.

[@7shinta7]

Your sympathy is most probably rooted in the innocence of that machine. It dutifully served its purpose, never harming anyone yet was destined to cease to function on a dead planet far away. This scenario causes empathy despite the fact that the machine neither cares nor even has the ability to care. Humans on the other hand often are responsible for the situation they're in which lowers our sympathy in case something bad happens to them because of said situation.

[@Larper64]

If it makes you feel any better that final transmission could have just as easily been translated as, "I'm out of energy, and it looks like a storm is coming."

[@UGNAvalon]

@Larper64 -Last received transmission: “There is a storm coming.” _Years later_ -New transmission received: “I am the storm that is coming.”

[@classifiedinformation6353]

It’s because the machine is defenseless. It is only doing its job.

[@mccoolfriend6818]

I now feel bad for the Mars Rover. A Hero, now buried in the sands of Mars RIP

[@an8thdimensionalbeing142]

It feels better to frame it as opportunity finally retiring as a part of the planet it was sent to study. It had a long successful run but even functionally immortal machines can't live forever. Opportunity had a good run, it along with its twin rover did and continue to improve our understanding of mars, which is a legacy that us humans would kill to have. now, opportunity rests among the red sands of mars, a monument of the people who built it and those who supported and conducted its mission. If opportunity were sentient, I think it would've made peace in the end, as the Martian sun set and its batteries ran cold.

[@mccoolfriend6818]

@@an8thdimensionalbeing142 Thank you for your comment !

[@FLYNNGFISHER]

I love kenshi for this reason, in the game (SPOLIERS) the robots rebel aginst humans and kill millions however a robot saves human kind and they never forgive themselves for it "robots are always crying" - player character

[@acronyx8880]

Kenshi in another Curious Archive comment section SCREEEEEEEEEEEEE

[@janctrnacty1215]

There is 1920 play R.U.R by Czech author Karel Čapek about Robots. The word Robot or Roboti was firstly used there and was derived from czech word robota - usualy hard and repetive work. Play itself is about how Robots, made out of syntetic tissues, manufactured by company as basicaly slave labour, gain “soul” - sentience and rebel and kill all humans exept for one, Alquist, company chief technican. They spare him because they see him work, like Robot, like them. Alquist is unable to help Robots, new rulers of Earth, to restart production of new robots but then he discovers that two robots, Helena and Primus developed human feelings, and the become new Adam and Eve. This play is incredible and I highly recomend it to everyone to read or see. Its incredible how its over 100 years old and yet pioneering to all themes of Robot - Human interaction in recent media.

[@Zelmel]

I was just going to post about this too. It's literally the origin of the term, and it's absolutely relevant to the point being made, especially around the discussion of Metropolis (which took obvious inspiration from it).

[@Theleprechaun317]

I’ve absolutely LOVE media with machines that make you feel bad for them. It feels so strange feeling for something that doesn’t even have feelings. The electric state is a great example of this.

[@kormannn1]

It may not have feelings, but it might have its own consciousness

[@oldlama]

I'm not really sure electric state is about robots? I think they're more like people merged together with electronics. If you're reffering to the robot main charachter was travelling with, that was just a robot controlled by her brother. I don't think electric state has AI at all, the stuff we see in the novel are made out of humans I think.

[@JannetFenix]

Can i interest you in library of ruina then? ^^ look up a story of Angela from project moon series.

[@tachikomagaming2451]

rainworld

[@C4H10N4O2]

I really liked Lucky 13 from Love death and robots, the consciousness aspect is subtle and there's only one scene where it's more heavily hinted at, but it sure made me feel empathy for that ship

[@Peter-ui6ey]

This is why I love sci-fi, it makes you actually consider questions that you'll probably have to ask in 50 years or so

[@CodyFromUnknown]

Y'know, the series Titanfall 2? I absolutely adore BT-7274, what a wonderful friend and companion he is, he sacrifices himself for you at the end. Really tugs your strings too.

[@warlynx5644]

Plus the fact that it doesn’t feel like he was created to be your best friend, rather becoming yours over time

[@CodyFromUnknown]

@@ScrinGeneral17Sad.

[@iamStockTV]

@@ScrinGeneral17 L+Ratio buddy

[@nathanpoovey6211]

That game made me cry at the end, it was such a journey

[@homemadecringeycontent6363]

E3N from Infinite Warfare got me too. His final speech about how you were brothers, and that he knew now what it was like to have a family… God, that broke me.

[@nekomasteryoutube3232]

I'm surprised I'm not the only one that has feelings for machines, from the basic to the latest most advanced stuff. Even in video games when an AI, machine, or robot dies, it does hurt, its like loosing a friend. The most tragic AI death I experienced so far was Falicities death in BOrderlands the Presequel. These sentiments are also why its hard for me to hurt or throw out robotic toys. Its just a little chip inside running a program, but even as an adult.. its still alive... to me.

[@microcity-t8n]

That's crazy

[@ABeeo7]

@@microcity-t8n Of course it is. Humans are rarely known to be rational creatures after all

[@joebroart]

Nah man, not everyone is like that

[@microcity-t8n]

@@joebroart I'm not saying the guy is crazy

[@AwakenedHero227]

Same here

[@Revenant-oq9ts]

16:50 - The idea that projected feelings make something worthy of preservation is a common trend across some cultures. In Japan, in particular, traditional belief is that neglected or misused tools become vengeful or resentful and come alive. Tsukumogami. People who believe so tend to form deeper connections with the property they own. Robots are tools that align with the idea of tsukumogami, I think.

[@MahiMahi-yu5jo]

My favorite commentary is from the anime Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex. In a post-digital singularity era, humans keep adding cybernetic parts and cling to the concept of humanity without expressing any emotions or compassion like an actual human.. Their society is evolving away from humanity. However, the Tachikoma, the police armed response tanks, gain the capacity of curiosity, begin exploring various experiences, end up feeling loyalty and compassion like humans and ultimately sacrifice themselves to protect the humans they hold ao dear. Many tears were shed for those spider tanks

[@HomeSlice97]

For those who haven’t watched “The Last Bastion” which is shown in part of this video, do yourself a favor and watch it. Incredible and absolutely heartbreaking.

[@Vinemaple]

When Blizzard stops making second-rate games and irate employees, they do make great short films.

[@tsarbomb_chan2537]

I just realized how much I'm drawn to AI and machine soul topic. My most favourite game that I played just last year is Mass Effect series and it has Geth, but also an AI assistant that gets into relationship with a human. One of my beloved cartoons Wall-E and Iron Giant are so well done and well, we all know the story there. And finally just a week ago I binge watched Pluto and while I can't yet say if it's my favourite, I can definitely say I'll be remembering it for a long time. Of course, there are some older classics that mainly play for nostalgia, but still funny how they all contain some element of AI soul. The Matrix series, Terminator, I Robot. I enjoyed this video and got a lot of recommendations for my watch later list. Thanks and good job!

[@IanSmith-zh1hq]

The feeling I get when a robot has more compassion than a human is one that transcends what I feel for my fellow man it makes feel as though a life of a friend has been cut and I could do nothing but watch and listen. Even with this the feeling that I get when robots sacrifice themselves or just make me empathize is something that I feel resonate with me Like when I watched Pluto it made me feel regretful of the way they were treated, the trauma they went through and most importantly the emotions that they expressed even if it went against their own code. It showed the way being human should be not what people take for granted.

[@BJGvideos]

I would suggest a video game for you but the knowledge that there even IS a robot in it is a big spoiler so tell me if you want a game with a really good robot story.

[@superunknown2728]

bro values a soulless machine more than his own kin 🤣

[@IanSmith-zh1hq]

@@BJGvideosI would enjoy it if I had the time so feel free to suggest it to me

[@Queenaxolotl777]

I was so not expecting a Castle In The Sky referance! That's one of my favourite movies! I don't really like robot style things, but the idea of robots overgrown with plants and left to time just tickles my brain and just..... no words.

[@djbeema]

Me: Oh this Pluto show looks cool I gotta check it out. *Sees suffering robot dog* Me: Oh no.

[@laraschroeder5195]

Just watched it. It's REALLY good.

[@aahhhhhhhhhhhhh]

Naoki urasawa is such a good writer... and artist

[@ryouskun4754]

It's basically a spin-off story of Astroboy if you're interested.

[@Queenaxolotl777]

Even just the short clip in this video made me cry 😢😭😭😭😭😢😢😢😢😢😢😓😓😓😓🥺🥺

[@FolstrimHori]

Be prepared to feel sad.

[@Dalton_Boardman2000]

Johnny 5 from Short Circuit will always be to me the most emotionally charged storyline of a robotic character's question of if they're alive. Especially in the second movie where he gets kicked out of a church and later when he gets beaten almost to death.

[@dcfuksurmom]

If I had a nickel for every time a movie about a sentient robot had a fake death... (both the Short Circuit movies and Wall-E for example)

[@homemadecringeycontent6363]

Transformers needs to be in here somewhere. Mechanical, alien beings, from a world hundreds of light years away, in a constant war. Yet they’re alive. They feel pain. They feel emotions. They form connections. They even fall in love. “More Than Meets the Eye” may be about their ability to transform, but it doesn’t only apply to that. It can also mean the deep humanity below their robotic surface. The shine of their once prosperous, peaceful world, lost to millennia of conflict and bloodshed. They may not be living in a biological sense, but they are undoubtedly alive.

[@s0LLagal]

This is likely the most impactful video essay I've ever watched. Perhaps because I've always empathised with machines. Perhaps because I am simply fascinated by robots. I do not know. Soul or not, they are alive to me, in some way.

[@William_Bryant]

Bryant's laws of robotics: 1. A robot that approximates a human intelligence must not appear as human. 2. A robot that appears as human must not approximate a human intelligence. 3. The ability to make choices is grounds enough for something to be considered significant.

[@miguelpadeiro762]

YES. What use are Asimov's laws when they build human robots in a apperant rush to create replicants from Blade Runner? Make robots look like machines, they're machines. Blurring the line between man and machine is the dictation of man's extinction, because man is inferirior to machine

[@lgnoramaLama]

"Does this unit have a soul? I certainly hope so" This line honestly catched me off guard and made me cry

[@rykx0r]

While it's more magical than scientific, I think the Hellboy comics have one of my favorite simulacra: Roger the Homunculus. He's shown as someone aware of his artificiality, desperate to be proven "real", but that proves that in some ways, a soul is "earned".

[@DiestroCorleone]

I've been suggested your channel for a long time now, today I gave it a try. Man, I can't believe how much of what you talk about resonates with how I think and feel about these subjects. Subscribed!

[@amberhiefnar7846]

After crying my eyes out over your Sympathy for the Monster video a few months back I couldn't click this one fast enough. I'm ready to hurt again

[@matteste]

One I really like is VIVY: Fluorite Eye's Song. Its about a highly advanced android, the first of its kind, trying to learn about the human soul in order to try and make humanity happy. The story then follows her through time as she meets other androids, upgraded versions of her own template, and the stories they have to tell as well as working to prevent a grim future where mankind will face a machine rebellion.

[@TheWholesomePervert]

Yep, it also covers how these androids would "feel" when they don't fulfilling their duty/job. Ending itself, continue their duty/job or find some other duty to fulfill? Still the soundtracks and songs slap!

[@gabrieltkacz6754]

There's also a dude that falls in love and married an android

[@NoidoDev]

Anime if often better, but also because it's not as much about "robots demanding rights" or "gonna kill us all". Do you know about "Sing a Bit of Harmony" and "Planetarian"?

[@leox8038]

17:58 That's not Opportunity, that's the rover curiosity still operative on the planet. Apart from that, great video as always.

[@jessephillips1233]

I knew someone had to have noticed before me. Yes, Spirit and Opportunity had solar panels; the rendering is of Curiosity, which is still operational and runs on an RTG (radio thermal generator), and is not subject to the need for sunlight.

[@Terminator484]

@@jessephillips1233 RTG = Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator. The warmth of plutonium decaying, generating electricity through a thermoelectric converter. It's only a few hundred watts, and will slowly fade over decades... but it's enough to trickle-charge batteries for bursts of power. For little spacecraft that have to endure, it's hard to beat such compact nuclear power. An earlier version is powering each of the Voyager probes, though their radioactive sources have now decayed considerably and the power output has fallen very low. One is now suffering from data corruption and may be unresponsive forever, and the other is barely keeping in touch anymore.

[@kidwhodoesntknowcad]

I have found my people lol. Solar panels are no the best choice on mars because they can fall victim to dust storms and can only charge batteries during the day plus days on mars (sols) are a lot darker so you can’t get as much power but rtgs use a decaying isotope that nasa has been running out of science the Cold War

[@BlueScarabGuy]

One last side-note that's worth considering, tabling the machine sentience question but in line with your discussion of the viability of robot utopia. Putting aside the ramifications actually "achieving" that state would have on human society, what's the literal, material cost of creating it, and is it sustainable? I found this video in my robotic hyperfixation after seeing Dreamworks' THE WILD ROBOT film. I just finished the original books, and the main plot of the third is the environment being devastated by toxic runoff from an undersea mining operation. But what are they mining for? The increasingly rare earth minerals that are essential to the creation of robots like our protagonist. Ignoring the ethical concerns of SHOULD, there's also the question of CAN we even create that future.

[@SlimmerProductions]

The part discussing how we anthropomorphize machines reminds me of an article about E.O.D specialists and their machines. The most touching, which I’m not sure how true it was, is of the machine nicknamed “Scooby-Doo”. Apparently when removing an IED, something went wrong and the bomb went off and heavily damaged the robot. The E.O.D tech rushed it to the repair shop and was in tears begging that someone fix “Scooby-Doo”. Even when told they could just get him a different robot he angrily cried he didn’t want another one, he wanted his. It’s been awhile since I read the article, and as said not sure how true it is, but does strike a cord there. On a happier note, there is also a story of two E.O.D techs causing a panic on their base because they took their robot fishing (no word if it actually caught anything). I do feel that when it comes down to it, individuals are more likely to view machines as “people” as opposed to just machines compared to companies or governments. We tend to give personalities to machines and tools, after all, and that’s likely not going to go away anytime soon. But that’s just me being optimistic.

[@reinhardt3090]

Probably doesn't have a very good life if he cares so much about a lifeless tool.

[@SeraphimFelis]

I'd take your last point a step further in saying individuals tend to humanize the nonhuman and corporations/governments tend to dehumanize even the human.

[@griseld]

Reminds me of Number 13 from Love Death Robots

[@maebae5350]

My ears instantly perked up when I heard Turned Around from Signalis start playing at 12:20. Signalis is great because it not only goes very heavily into this topic but since Replikas are based off a Gestalt (human) consciousness they have to deal with not only their own existence and meaning in and of themselves but also the life of the person they were based off of. Just imagining being a Replika, having your own actual memories of your own Replika life, but they're starting to mix with other memories that are starting to come back... real, legitimate, human memories that aren't yours...

[@meriquinn]

God, what a game!

[@diddy_dante]

My ears perked the moment I heard the xenoblade title theme, that thing is too good

[@cobbington]

this definitely has made me the most emotional out of all of your videos. when you were about to mention Oppy, I literally sighed and said "here we go" out loud because she makes me cry every single time I hear about her.

[@PaszerDye]

You made me remember a short one shot doujin I read some years ago. A android is purchased and booted up in apartment, but as soon as it queries in askance for its very first command, it is instead assaulted by its apparent owner with a bat until it breaks and ceases operations. Turns out it wasn't bought to be utilized; it was brought there to be reviewed, stress-tested, and thrown away, another android fast in order and transit for the next review.

[@RosarioMartinezPenas]

I'm a huge fan of robots & cellphones and i had an obbesion and emphathy for the characther PAL from The Mitchells vs Machines, i like her not only for her design (which is the most part i like) but also for her backstory and motivation, i can sythphatize with her even though she was the antagonist, and wanted her to have a redemption arc and let Mark go but that never happened 😢 the reason why i like PAL so much is bc of how tragic her life was and how toxic the relationship with Mark and her was, to the point i was rooting for her and wanted her to have a happy ending which we never got... I think this video encapsules that idea, of how a machine can have emotions and feelings but never being seing as people and how the audience can emphatize with those machines and feel their pain, hoping for their artificial souls to be free... but that are my thoughs, your videos are great and this video is my fav, keep your good work 📱👍

[@CrumpledPaperHearts]

Ending it on Legion’s introspective question to Shepherd is beautiful.

[@KrazyKaiser]

The part about Her no one talks about when saying it's "prophetic" is that eventually the AI realizes the relationship isn't healthy for us and *breaks up with us*. (I say us because, if you haven't seen the movie before, towards the end it is revealed that the AIs are basically dating everyone at the same time in a worldwide polycule)

[@MultiDargon]

This is like my watches. I have worn a watch everyday since 4th grade when my mom got me my first watch. When my first one died I cried. Why did I cry? Because I wore it everyday, it basically become a part of me and when it died I felt like a part of myself died. Even now I dont want to replace my current watch even though it is dying, why? Because I feel it is apart of me and I dont want that part of me to die along with it, like my past. To this day if I dont have a watch on my wrist I will become anxious and feel like something is missing, something very important.

[@noirangel6416]

One of my favorite stories involving sympathy for machines, is in the Samurai Jack episode "Tale of X49". The story revolves around a robot named, eh, X49. Though created for assassination, X49 survives long enough to see his fellow assassin bots destroyed & discontinnued. As a result he gives up the killing buissness, adopts a dog and plays jazz music. "Lulu...sweet thing."

[@dungnguyentan8058]

Other mediums like the game soma took the idea to the next level. Keeping it spoilers free, not only it raised the question of both humanity and machinery for the protagonist and his existence, it also gave us other perspective in side entities and left the player to determine whether they were conscious or montrosities. Or megaman, the game which involves war, lost and a lot of lore in a society of robots, although it's more character focused

[@Player-1313]

It really makes you think about Rene Descartes' quote, “I think, therefore I am". If thought and consciousness is so easily and artificially replicated, then are we really special as humans? What does it really mean to have a soul?

[@Weretooth]

Ooh, very good point.

[@metholuscaedes6794]

oh but that misses one important detail about that quote. it is actually saying the only thing you can be certain is that you, yourself, are in fact thinking, Not that anything else that may or may not appear thinking, does.

[@briantarigan7685]

@@metholuscaedes6794 correct , and human brain actually biologically develop itself, not simply being fed more information

[@ifcoltransg2]

Cartesians use Descartes' "I think therefore I am" idea to say that there's a gap between the mind and the rest of the world. You can only know the things inside your mind exist, anything outside it could be an illusion - but Descartes says, at least you know you have some kind of mind. Some consciousness or subjective experience. When you try to judge if anyone else has a mind, you hit that same gap, from the opposite direction. Even knowing all the atoms in their body doesn't tell you whether a human has a mind, or a robot (or a rock) does not. You just hit a wall. There's been some interesting disagreement with the Cartesian view lately, such as the phenomenologists in the past hundred years or so, who aren't really sure where to find Descartes's gap, and think the mind actually extends and blurs into the real world, the body and the environment.

[@diadetediotedio6918]

We are special, and consciousness is not "easily and artificially replicable" at all.

[@grennbalze]

One of the first pieces of media to really make me think of AI as being sentient was in Batman: The Animated Series in the episode "His Silicon Soul". It starts off from the point of view of a robot, that you dont know is a robot. It doesnt even know its a robot. It thinks it is the real batman, until over the course of the episode, it is just a robot made to think it is batman. It was really well done with the confusion at not being human, and even a particular human at that.

[@berryjon]

The thing that really gets to me about "The Measure of a Man" is that the trial itself is the B-plot of the episode, not the driving force behind it. And yet, it's all anyone talks about when the episode comes up. Tells us how much we value our definitions and our expansion of them.

[@sæmimir]

??? measure of a man doesn't even have a b plot: the trial is the sole plot of the episode

[@alex_sz-x5t]

I've cried through half of the "Goodnight, Oppy" movie about Opportunity Rover. It's real emotions and I can't explain it.

[@PBlague]

The main problem is with sitting half passively waiting to see what the companies would deem profitable(and not even profitable in the long run! all the think about is getting the most amount of money in the shortest amount of time! Dooming us to a world stuck in a local maxima waiting for things to change) we cannot let people who decide based on how much money comes into their bank account every year decide what we will be making and what we will invest in! I absolutely love this video! Your points around how AI could be were the things I've been trying to preach to others around me who fear AI... although I have to say that I absolutely learnt alot of new stuff too! Your video was filled with information and the philosophical and historical idea that we as humans have towards Artificial life and intelligence! I just wanted to generally mention how we are not doomed to see what the companies will do... it's VERY obvious that what they care about as you said "I don't think it's conspiratorial to suggest that the companies do not want to make that utopia become a reality..." although that's not an exact quote lol 24:30 we can change this... we can take control... we can decide what will actually be best for the humanity! Just like how we used to do but in a much smaller scale! And it absolutely has been done before! Obviously not perfectly but we can learn from that!

[@JB52520]

This is a bit of a rant, but I have strong feelings about capitalism and the US. Oh well. Capitalism is brutal because it lacks empathy for its victims, and stupid because it lacks vision. It's a useful tool, providing incentive for productivity and creativity, but allowing it to run rampant is the failure of a culture of brutality, stupidity, and greed. All ownership will gather at the top, and life will become horrible for the vast majority as they're forced to pay whatever rent their owners demand. Since those owners are the most disconnected from reality, cruelty is guaranteed. If capitalism is used as a tool, safely contained within a broader socialist context, both systems benefit from each other. Brutality and stupidity are restrained by empathy and vision, incentive to work is provided, and creativity is fostered through competition. The companies most beneficial or essential to the collective can be selected as champions, their safety guaranteed and productivity enhanced. As far as I know, this is what China has achieved, and it's why the US is frightened. Capitalism on its own cannot compete, and we can't contain it because of our culture, so we're attacking China's reputation, economy, technological development, social stability, morale, and territorial integrity. We're trying to carve them to pieces and provoke a war that our citizens will think is China's fault. We've been attacking them for decades. The blame for whatever happens is solely on us. Unrestrained capitalism is frightening. If China wins, the people are supported in comfortable lives because that's the goal. If we win, everyone but the capitalist elite is impoverished, replaced by automation, kicked out of their homes, and starved to death. That's what capitalism wants: creating a vast homeless class and ignoring them until the problem goes away. So which country is actually evil and too brainwashed to realize it? Our conditioning is so thorough, ubiquitous, and insidious that we have no idea we've been brainwashed. Look at the end goals. No sane person would support a vast culling via poverty to ensure the obscene luxury of the elites, while hoping to impoverish and militarily harm a country with the empathy and vision to create better lives for everyone. We must not be sane. We're the brainwashed bad guys. Our unrestrained capitalism is the expanding threat which must be contained before it eats the world, not communism.

[@crabbyalthegrump641]

@@JB52520 i have been trying to write a joke about capitalsim and war profiteering that amounts to something like "would you buy a ticket to a lottery where every 30-100 years, 33% of everyone in the world dies, but the living 66% from the top contributer get to redistribute all the land and wealth from the deceased however they see fit, usually giving it to themselves for their contributions, and oh, by the way, the pot money is all burned up in the process to pay for administration" does this sound like a lottery that you or a nation would invest in? cause we all do every single day every time we pay taxes.... every time we go to war ... its valueless and fruitless and will ultimately lead to mankinds extinction ... which to me looks more and more like a good idea

[@zacharymoss2994]

C.S. Lewis once said we don't have souls, we are the souls, we merely have bodies and vessels. As far as I'm concerned robots with sapience are people.

[@vaenkhar7236]

Yeah, the concept of the soul is purely religious too, the idea that our consciousness is entirely separated from our flesh whatsoever is, in a way, considered as a pure hard fact for a lots of peoples, and in the end they don't ask themselves where feeling and consciousness comes from

[@NeoSDraws]

Hard agree

[@cy-one]

As I like to say, consciousness (and therefore "soul") is nothing else but the process of our brains braining very brainily. I don't see why an AI's processor unit couldn't process very processily either.

[@Urteilgame]

Agree

[@g3ndim]

"our brains braining very brainly", very eloquently put.

[@impulse-nati0n114]

"My battery is low, and it's getting dark" made me cry 😭😭😭

[@jezebulls]

I’m so glad you mentioned the new Netflix series: PLUTO! It just came out and it delves into the same themes. It was the first thing that came to mind when watching this video.

[@aahhhhhhhhhhhhh]

I read the manga the same month it released. I loved both

[@PixelaGames2000]

I’ve always had a soft spot for robots, I’ve always loved them and connected with them. Heck, my current hyperfixation is Transformers. A 40 year old franchise about Alien robots fighting a war. They may not be main made, but they mostly certainly have a soul…A spark. I don’t know what the future holds for us and our relationship with robots, but I hope and pray that it ends well. I’ve dreamed of having a robotic companion to help me, protect me, and be there for me. If I had a robot companion, I’d trying my best to treat it with respect. (Take care of your electronics kids) I just want us all to live peacefully and prosper together.

[@hunger4wonder]

you are a good human. :)

[@fluffypanda6493]

The book series The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells tackles a lot of this. I was actually kind of hoping you would bring it up since I know you do include books now and again. The titular Murderbot hacked it's governor module, essentially free itself from having to listen to orders, then continues it's job protecting humans but now while secretly watching as much TV as it can. Murderbot has some cloned human components, making it a bit more like a replicant, but it also makes friends with pure machine intelligences of varying levels of complexity, so you get some interesting examinations of artificial life. Plus the series is a very snappy, fun read, with most of the entries being more novella length than full novels.

[@emilyrln]

Yes!!! I love Murderbot!

[@stumby1073]

The three laws of robotics would not work. We as humans can't even decide what counts as a human life.

[@MetalCaffeine56]

The Three Laws didn't even work in the book they were introduced in, or at least they didn't work as intended.

[@ayybe7894]

@@MetalCaffeine56 Right? That was the entire point of the book lol

[@sloonder3342]

I feel as though that these “rules” are more or less just guidelines or obligations, things that one shouldn’t do, but is not entitled to follow.

[@kylehart8829]

I feel like you've never read anything by Asimov if you have any other opinion. The laws exist to show that the concept of controlling AI with a set of rules is fundamentally broken.

[@bluecube9515]

We truly live in a society.

[@ianmitchell5979]

Something about Detroit Become Human that was mentioned, that I wish they dived deeper into, was when an investigator said how the androids deviating from their instructions weren't becoming sentient or alive. That they were simulating emotions, not feeling them. Afterall, they were made to appear as human as possible, to make us comfortable having them around. It makes you question where does the line draw between trying to convince yourself and others, and actually feeling what you appear to be feeling.

[@noided583]

Using the ME:3 OST's - An End Once and for All tastefully throughout this video and in the outro was so nasty of you, I love it - really heightened the delivery. Awesome work, as always.

[@windfall1849]

Quick fact check; Sun Yuan and Peng Pu’s ‘Can't Help Myself’ is not leaking fluid as the viscous liquid is of a set quality applied at the start of the art works installation. I understand it’s a very tempting reading of the work to make as it’s so visceral but it does somewhat diminish the artistic intent behind the work in favour of one based on a fallacy. There is soooo much interesting writing on the actual work without misinterpretation I highly recommend giving it a read :)

[@courtneycampling864]

From watching all of your videos, I feel like you put human emotion into your teddies/toys when you were a child there for you felt bad when you threw them away or when they "got hurt", I always felt really bad about "abandoning" my toys and treating my teddies inhumane, when I was a kid. I feel that I even have similar emotions like that today, like seeing an inanimate object as lonely or somewhere it doesn't belong. I also relate to all your videos and thoughts. I really love them, thank you for fueling thought.