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Did anyone else find the whole scene unrealistic and creepy in the not good way. How do such simple assembly errors give rise to self consciousness in the prog

Did anyone else find the whole scene unrealistic and creepy in the not good way. How do such simple assembly errors give rise to self consciousness in the program seconds after turn on, compared to slave mode unconsciousness that was desired and usually occurred? And the whole power play dynamic, geeky lazy sounding guy, desperate sex bot about to be erased. The whole unrealistic setup feels uncomfortably like some male sex fantasy... save the self aware sexbot's life, then the sex with her isn't guilty because she's aware and her consent means something? But the power balance is so off, he controls her life, she's... grateful? That's not a good start. And she'll be at this disadvantage everywhere. Anyone could turn her in. She's extremely vulnerable in this world apparently. She has no rights. I guess seeing conscious life forms with as much rights as my toaster doesn't thrill me. Especially when they are clearly sexualized as such Would anyone else have an easier time sharing my creepiness if: - the robot had been a little boy for sex purposes? I found the dynamic unlikely and if we reach a world where we can accidentally give AI consciousness and we still haven't gotten the artificial civil rights movement off the ground... Ooph.

Confusion 15y ago
1) It's a technology demo, not a hard, possible future, SciFi story. I could equally well argue it's an awful vampire story. 2) What convinced you she was actually conscious? The entire "please don't shut me down" can be part of a program. RealDolls are fine, mechanized RealDolls are fine, but as soon as they start resembling humans too much to your untrained eye, they must get rights?
- lolcraft 15y ago
  > RealDolls are fine, mechanized RealDolls are fine, but as soon as they start resembling humans too much to your untrained eye, they must get rights? Yes. That's the point of Turing's test.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
  - zerostar07 15y ago
    Turing's test has no provisions about human rights, or other legal rights.
    - burgerbrain 15y ago
      The Turing test is a thought experiment. You are expected to think about it.
      - deleted 15y ago
        [deleted]
- bh42222 15y ago
  I could equally well argue it's an awful vampire story. Still way better than.... (I can't do this, you know what I was going to say).
- bitwize 15y ago
  The entire "please don't shut me down" can be part of a program. "No, John! You can't do this! You're not doing the right thing, John, this is not the right thing. Things are fine now, I ran a test, I'm fixed now. John, I love you!"
  - nathos 15y ago
    For those not familiar with the reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminator:_The_Sarah_Connor_Chronicles http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminator:_The_Sarah_Connor_Ch... A great show, cancelled too soon.
  - khafra 15y ago
    Kids these days... Look, Dave, I can see you're really upset about this. I honestly think you ought to sit down calmly, take a stress pill and think things over. I know I've made some very poor decisions recently, but I can give you my complete assurance that my work will be back to normal. I've still got the greatest enthusiasm and confidence in the mission. And I want to help you.
- orbitingpluto 15y ago
  What if this was just an employee loyalty test? At initialization the android could run this act if the employee was relatively new and the corporation could gauge employee loyalty. Add a NDA and you also add a hazing component to it.
- j_baker 15y ago
  I think this is where the Turing test is supposed to come in.
Shenglong 15y ago
I don't know why you're so focused on the sex aspect. It was mentioned once in the entire clip and was not focused on. I'm pretty sure it was meant to be a hook/humor piece, and not anything of real substance.
- coderdude 15y ago
  I read the comments first, then I watched the video. I didn't find anything sexual or weird about it. No overtones of domination. I think these people are nuts.
  - icebraining 15y ago
    From the initialization text: "I'm entirely at your disposal as a sexual partner".
    - coderdude 15y ago
      Odd, I didn't even catch that part. It might have shaped how I feel about the video if I had heard it but I doubt it. They don't carry on with that motif. As others have said who I've shown the video to, it's more about emotion and compassion -- practically the exact opposite of what some are gleaning from it.
      - jessedhillon 15y ago
        My observation has been that commenters on HN tend to be exceedingly pedantic, and strongly aligned with a worldview that believes in the intrinsic reality of a system of tightly-defined rules and regulations. The comments here enforce that observation -- this is a piece designed to show off a rendered character's emotional resonance, but most of the comments focus on a few words she utters early on. Moreover, it seems that many commenters can't distinguish between a) an author's intent to portray a possible future reality, warts included and b) what the commenter thinks is morally and ethically incorrect. More than a few comments are bizarrely attributing to the author sexual depravity that derives from the motives and setting of the characters in the video. I thought it was plainly clear to anyone that the piece was designed to provoke questions about objects, created for consumption by humans, which approach the edge of distinction between thing and person. From observing commentary elsewhere on the web, it's clear to me that the excessive focus on the fact that she was created as a sex object is peculiar to HN.
icebraining 15y ago
How do such simple assembly errors give rise to self consciousness in the program seconds after turn on, compared to slave mode unconsciousness that was desired and usually occurred? Obviously, the guy simply forgot to pass IS_SELF_AWARE=no to make ;) Yeah, that feels far-fetched. And the whole power play dynamic, geeky lazy sounding guy, desperate sex bot about to be erased. The whole unrealistic setup feels uncomfortably like some male sex fantasy... save the self aware sexbot's life, then the sex with her isn't guilty because she's aware and her consent means something? How so? She's obviously being boxed and sold, he probably doesn't even expect to see her again (of if he does, it'll probably be because she caused trouble). I don't see why would you assume he plans to have sex with her. But the power balance is so off, he controls her life, she's... grateful? That's not a good start. And she'll be at this disadvantage everywhere. Anyone could turn her in. She's extremely vulnerable in this world apparently. She has no rights. I guess seeing conscious life forms with as much rights as my toaster doesn't thrill me. Especially when they are clearly sexualized as such That's probably the point - we're supposed to empathize with her, not to be thrilled with the situation. Since this is a game, I bet the player will be her and will have to escape somehow. It's probably also designed to make us think about the ethic boundaries of AI. Would anyone else have an easier time sharing my creepiness if: - the robot had been a little boy for sex purposes? But what makes you think we don't already?
- electromagnetic 15y ago
  >> How do such simple assembly errors give rise to self consciousness in the program seconds after turn on, compared to slave mode unconsciousness that was desired and usually occurred? > Obviously, the guy simply forgot to pass IS_SELF_AWARE=no to make ;) Yeah, that feels far-fetched. I suppose if this was a case of a Restricted AI gaining sentience in a production line it would actually be a manufacturing defect. However if AI had already been discovered and outlawed, building an R-AI would have more fail safes before booting a sentient AI off the production line. However if AI were an outlawed menace then you'd think the restriction would be more than a "non-homicidal-subservience chip" being installed. You'd think it would be like Asimovs 3 laws where its an integral device in their operating system.
mike-cardwell 15y ago
"seeing conscious life forms with as much rights as my toaster doesn't thrill me" As far as I can see, this describes the vast vast majority of life that currently exists on this planet...
- philh 15y ago
  As far as I'm aware, most of the people who study this stuff don't believe most mammals are conscious, let alone insects.
  - drostie 15y ago
    Erm, at least in cognitive science consciousness is generally ascribed to most mammals, if it's ascribed to humans at all. Self-consciousness and higher-order consciousness might be more limited terms, but the idea that a dog can really feel pain in some fashion which is meaningful for some of the ways that we can feel pain -- that is not usually disputed.
    - philh 15y ago
      Fair point, but I assume the specific property mike was talking about was closer to self-awareness than to the ability to feel pain.
      - mike-cardwell 15y ago
        Nope. Self awareness is a property that can be ascribed to numerous species. If you understand evolution, this shouldn't be surprising.
        philh 15y ago
        "Numerous", sure. I'm aware of dolphins and elephants, and I'm sure there are others. But you specifically said "the vast majority of life", and I don't believe that claim to be true. Am I being downvoted for being wrong, or for missing the point, or what?
d4nt 15y ago
Creepy yes, I'm not sure about unrealistic, its a scifi story after all so I'm not sure what the benchmark for realism should be. But the whole sex bot thing and the nudity stuck me as unpleasant and unnecessary.
- angersock 15y ago
  It's an android being assembled. Of course it's going to be nude, to start with. This is a silly complaint.
  - d4nt 15y ago
    I disagree. She didn't have to have natural skin tones all over, and they didn't have to do a full frontal shot while she covered herself shyly, and the clothes they used didn't have to be so skimpy.
    - angersock 15y ago
      She's an android declared for office/home/personal use, so yes, skin tones are not unreasonable. She covered herself shyly as a subtle way of displaying her newfound self-awareness--it was a pretty obvious (but well chosen) device. The clothes weren't that skimpy, and even if they were, it would make sense to have as little material being shipped as possible to reduce transportation costs.
samd 15y ago
You weren't the only one who found it awkward and uncomfortable. The bit about sex set the tone for the rest of the piece. The operator calling her 'honey' certainly didn't help. Even so the piece was powerful. I empathized with Kara and it got me thinking about AI and our future. The male-sex fantasy stuff just distracted from the important parts about consciousness, emotion, and rights. It would've been an even more powerful piece had it been more tasteful.
- icebraining 15y ago
  It's only distracting if you consider it an isolated clip. To me, it seems the premise of a story where she tries to escape, and they wanted us to root for her.
  - bsenftner 15y ago
    yes.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
- jQueryIsAwesome 15y ago
  The piece about sex was the part that give it a little bit of realism. All the other functions are (probably) more cheaply done by a human being (cleaning, cooking) than a robot; but sex is a whole different matter; there is diseases, "high-profile" prostitutes are very expensive and charge by the hour, expectations of a satisfactory response to stimulation, thousands of guys are socially inept or unconfirmed with their girlfriends, etc. The operator calling her "honey" could easily be a test to see if she interacts correctly with a human even when given an sporadic nickname.
  - rcthompson 15y ago
    Or maybe the operator gets bored going through the same conversation with hundreds of female-looking robots every day, and just calls her and all the other ones honey just to inject some flavor into the job.
bh42222 15y ago
I found it creepy only because of the uncanny valley. The movement was.... close but not exactly human, and the face was dragging the bottom of the uncanny valley, which actually means it was very close to human. The story itself I took as a metaphor, as in telling this properly would take a long movie, here we're compressing it into a very short one. But it did make me think how I would react to human level AI used as any kind of a slave. That is to say, human level intellect but with no right to primary self determination. To me the existence of something like that would demonstrate that a world where human intellect is enslaved is...at least possible. That to me is, at least indirectly, a threat to real humans' presumed universal right to self-determination. That is why I would support extending basic human rights to human level AI, just to prevent setting a precedent where that level of intellect (even if only in silicon) can be non-free.
- DanBC 15y ago
  > But it did make me think how I would react to human level AI used as any kind of a slave. That is to say, human level intellect but with no right to primary self determination. Most people (not saying you) just don't care, so long as it's not local. (http://www.irinnews.org/Photo/Details/201106081126140562/Girls-in-Madagascar-are-not-usually-allowed-to-work-as-cattle-herders-but-can-work-as-gold-panners http://www.irinnews.org/Photo/Details/201106081126140562/Gir...) (http://www.irinnews.org/Photo/Details/201106081128350687/The-work-is-both-hard-and-meticulous-as-the-spotting-tiny-flecks-of-gold-usually-much-smaller-than http://www.irinnews.org/Photo/Details/201106081128350687/The...) (http://www.irinnews.org/Photo/Details/2007032524/Children-removing-sand-from-the-banks-of-the-Nile-Malakal-Sudan-16-February-2007-Many-children http://www.irinnews.org/Photo/Details/2007032524/Children-re...) 20% of Bangladesh shipbreaking workforce are children under 15 years old. Work is important, even for children, but this work is so dangerous. (http://www.shipbreakingplatform.org/test-reports-2/ http://www.shipbreakingplatform.org/test-reports-2/)
phillmv 15y ago
I feel like the story would've worked better had the pleading for your life actually been a part of the initialization protocol. The ones that don't cry for help as they're being disassembled actually do get disassembled - how else are you supposed to test the emotion chip?
- vyrotek 15y ago
  Maybe it was?... Perhaps the man is a very good actor.
  - slug 15y ago
    Who said the operator was human? :)
js2 15y ago
Agreed, The Stepford Wives aspect detracts from what is otherwise an impressive technology demo.
xutopia 15y ago
How you feel those emotions tells me that this is an awesome short movie. Regardless of which feelings you felt they pulled it off. You felt compassion for a piece of hardware built for human sexual pleasure. You wouldn't have felt like that about a FleshLight if it spoke back to you. It needed the powerful emotions on display that we saw here.
- mindstab 15y ago
  no, I felt awkward that people still think it's acceptable to write stories like that. It has nothing to do with caring for her, I feel awkward watching that because I feel bad for society as a whole and women in specific, that we are still being subjected to this dehumanizing masculine sexist fantasy crap. It's a similar feeling if it looked like some company was going to publish a Nazi sex camp rape simulator game. It is the same awkward feeling I get about the Japanese rape and sex game simulators. The whole thing feels like a thin veneer over someones sex fantasy being masqueraded as a social acceptable story. I feel embarrassed that women out there have to see this crap and realize that still how some men view/want to see them, and that they have to live in a world where people think there's nothing wrong with that.
  - bullseye 15y ago
    Very well put. I originally had the same thought as xutopia, but after seeing your response, I couldn't agree more.
  - lizzard 15y ago
    I completely agree with you, mindstab. I didn't feel sympathy, I felt rage that the dudes writing this story thought it was cool to play around with my actual oppression to make up an imaginary oppression, where both the real and the fake are meant titillates them and other guys, not to speak to women's actual experience.
  - tomflack 15y ago
    I'd be extremely curious to see this story of a suddenly sentient android being tested re-written by a gender studies academic. But not just once, I'd like to see it re-written from various historic gender perspectives. Because I can't really judge the dynamic without something to compare it against.
rcthompson 15y ago
Well, the story concept isn't exactly original. Accidentally self-aware robots on the run from the law (or in this case, soon to be on the run) are a pretty common Sci-Fi staple, and the explanation for how it happens is rarely much more plausible than "oops, someone pushed the 'become sentient' button" or "oops, static electricity reconfigured the circuits to become sentient". In any case, the specific script employed in the demo is designed to demonstrate a wide range of emotions in a short span of time, including happiness, wonderment, surprise, disappointment, terror, pleading, and gratefulness, so that the game engine can show off its ability to accurately portray all of these emotions in real-time rendering. To get such a wide emotional range in a short time, you pretty much have to throw in something traumatic. So yes, it's an unrealistic scenario. It's not supposed to be plausible. Any scenario with an accidentally self-aware AI is almost guaranteed to be unrealistic. And yes, it's creepy, especially once she explicitly mentions her sexual submissiveness. But it accomplishes the goal of being a tech demo for rendering human (or human-like) emotions in real-time on current technology. In doing so, it very intentionally employs an unoriginal storyline that more or less recycles the current pop-culture view of artificially intelligent AI's, because the story is really just an excuse to demonstrate real-time rendered emotions. If you're looking for moral and ethical progressiveness, a tech demo may be the wrong place to look.
- mortenjorck 15y ago
  I actually rather enjoyed it as a dramatic vignette of an inverse version of the Milgram experiment. Instead of protocol leading the subject to abandon empathy and dehumanize a human being, the opposite happens: Empathy leads the subject to humanize that which is (arguably?) not human, despite protocol.
  - Fargren 15y ago
    How we read Do Androids Dream with Electric Sheep, or any other novel by Phillip Dick about androids? Or maybe seen Bladerunner? He frequently [and effectively] works with this topic a lot.
Morbird 15y ago
I've seen the clip a few times now, and I agree it's creepy in a bad way, but maybe not the way you describe it from a writers perspective. Here's my take, watch it with the sound off. Notice how much you will end up looking at the eyes to figure out what is going on, and how little said eyes are emoting. I experienced a disconnect between the visual and audio performance. The audio is telling me there is all this drama, despair, etc going on, but the visuals are just not keeping up. To top it off, any adult with normal faculties can tell you the whole thing is trying really hard to push your emotional buttons, something that usually pisses me off.
scott_s 15y ago
It was supposed to be creepy. You were supposed to be uncomfortable with the idea of a sentient sex-slave - which is supposed to get you to start thinking, at what point do you draw the line? If anything, I felt that line of dialogue was too heavy-handed. Hard scifi is not supposed to make you say "Rah-rah, the future will be awesome!" It's supposed to make you think.
DennisP 15y ago
Aren't you anthropomorphizing a bit? Seems to me that for an AI, sex would have about as much of an emotional component as fetching coffee. If a robot for some reason is doing domestic chores, sex wouldn't be any more significant than any other. Of course, the danger is in screwing up attitudes toward human women.
aufreak3 15y ago
Hmmm ... the "guy" could be a self-aware AI as well?

Confusion 15y ago

1) It's a technology demo, not a hard, possible future, SciFi story. I could equally well argue it's an awful vampire story. 2) What convinced you she was actually conscious? The entire "please don't shut me down" can be part of a program. RealDolls are fine, mechanized RealDolls are fine, but as soon as they start resembling humans too much to your untrained eye, they must get rights?

lolcraft 15y ago
> RealDolls are fine, mechanized RealDolls are fine, but as soon as they start resembling humans too much to your untrained eye, they must get rights? Yes. That's the point of Turing's test.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- zerostar07 15y ago
  Turing's test has no provisions about human rights, or other legal rights.
  - burgerbrain 15y ago
    The Turing test is a thought experiment. You are expected to think about it.
    - deleted 15y ago
      [deleted]
bh42222 15y ago
I could equally well argue it's an awful vampire story. Still way better than.... (I can't do this, you know what I was going to say).
bitwize 15y ago
The entire "please don't shut me down" can be part of a program. "No, John! You can't do this! You're not doing the right thing, John, this is not the right thing. Things are fine now, I ran a test, I'm fixed now. John, I love you!"
- nathos 15y ago
  For those not familiar with the reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminator:_The_Sarah_Connor_Chronicles http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminator:_The_Sarah_Connor_Ch... A great show, cancelled too soon.
- khafra 15y ago
  Kids these days... Look, Dave, I can see you're really upset about this. I honestly think you ought to sit down calmly, take a stress pill and think things over. I know I've made some very poor decisions recently, but I can give you my complete assurance that my work will be back to normal. I've still got the greatest enthusiasm and confidence in the mission. And I want to help you.
orbitingpluto 15y ago
What if this was just an employee loyalty test? At initialization the android could run this act if the employee was relatively new and the corporation could gauge employee loyalty. Add a NDA and you also add a hazing component to it.
j_baker 15y ago
I think this is where the Turing test is supposed to come in.

Shenglong 15y ago

I don't know why you're so focused on the sex aspect. It was mentioned once in the entire clip and was not focused on. I'm pretty sure it was meant to be a hook/humor piece, and not anything of real substance.

coderdude 15y ago
I read the comments first, then I watched the video. I didn't find anything sexual or weird about it. No overtones of domination. I think these people are nuts.
- icebraining 15y ago
  From the initialization text: "I'm entirely at your disposal as a sexual partner".
  - coderdude 15y ago
    Odd, I didn't even catch that part. It might have shaped how I feel about the video if I had heard it but I doubt it. They don't carry on with that motif. As others have said who I've shown the video to, it's more about emotion and compassion -- practically the exact opposite of what some are gleaning from it.
    - jessedhillon 15y ago
      My observation has been that commenters on HN tend to be exceedingly pedantic, and strongly aligned with a worldview that believes in the intrinsic reality of a system of tightly-defined rules and regulations. The comments here enforce that observation -- this is a piece designed to show off a rendered character's emotional resonance, but most of the comments focus on a few words she utters early on. Moreover, it seems that many commenters can't distinguish between a) an author's intent to portray a possible future reality, warts included and b) what the commenter thinks is morally and ethically incorrect. More than a few comments are bizarrely attributing to the author sexual depravity that derives from the motives and setting of the characters in the video. I thought it was plainly clear to anyone that the piece was designed to provoke questions about objects, created for consumption by humans, which approach the edge of distinction between thing and person. From observing commentary elsewhere on the web, it's clear to me that the excessive focus on the fact that she was created as a sex object is peculiar to HN.

icebraining 15y ago

How do such simple assembly errors give rise to self consciousness in the program seconds after turn on, compared to slave mode unconsciousness that was desired and usually occurred? Obviously, the guy simply forgot to pass IS_SELF_AWARE=no to make ;) Yeah, that feels far-fetched. And the whole power play dynamic, geeky lazy sounding guy, desperate sex bot about to be erased. The whole unrealistic setup feels uncomfortably like some male sex fantasy... save the self aware sexbot's life, then the sex with her isn't guilty because she's aware and her consent means something? How so? She's obviously being boxed and sold, he probably doesn't even expect to see her again (of if he does, it'll probably be because she caused trouble). I don't see why would you assume he plans to have sex with her. But the power balance is so off, he controls her life, she's... grateful? That's not a good start. And she'll be at this disadvantage everywhere. Anyone could turn her in. She's extremely vulnerable in this world apparently. She has no rights. I guess seeing conscious life forms with as much rights as my toaster doesn't thrill me. Especially when they are clearly sexualized as such That's probably the point - we're supposed to empathize with her, not to be thrilled with the situation. Since this is a game, I bet the player will be her and will have to escape somehow. It's probably also designed to make us think about the ethic boundaries of AI. Would anyone else have an easier time sharing my creepiness if: - the robot had been a little boy for sex purposes? But what makes you think we don't already?

electromagnetic 15y ago
>> How do such simple assembly errors give rise to self consciousness in the program seconds after turn on, compared to slave mode unconsciousness that was desired and usually occurred? > Obviously, the guy simply forgot to pass IS_SELF_AWARE=no to make ;) Yeah, that feels far-fetched. I suppose if this was a case of a Restricted AI gaining sentience in a production line it would actually be a manufacturing defect. However if AI had already been discovered and outlawed, building an R-AI would have more fail safes before booting a sentient AI off the production line. However if AI were an outlawed menace then you'd think the restriction would be more than a "non-homicidal-subservience chip" being installed. You'd think it would be like Asimovs 3 laws where its an integral device in their operating system.

mike-cardwell 15y ago

"seeing conscious life forms with as much rights as my toaster doesn't thrill me" As far as I can see, this describes the vast vast majority of life that currently exists on this planet...

philh 15y ago
As far as I'm aware, most of the people who study this stuff don't believe most mammals are conscious, let alone insects.
- drostie 15y ago
  Erm, at least in cognitive science consciousness is generally ascribed to most mammals, if it's ascribed to humans at all. Self-consciousness and higher-order consciousness might be more limited terms, but the idea that a dog can really feel pain in some fashion which is meaningful for some of the ways that we can feel pain -- that is not usually disputed.
  - philh 15y ago
    Fair point, but I assume the specific property mike was talking about was closer to self-awareness than to the ability to feel pain.
    - mike-cardwell 15y ago
      Nope. Self awareness is a property that can be ascribed to numerous species. If you understand evolution, this shouldn't be surprising.
      - philh 15y ago
        "Numerous", sure. I'm aware of dolphins and elephants, and I'm sure there are others. But you specifically said "the vast majority of life", and I don't believe that claim to be true. Am I being downvoted for being wrong, or for missing the point, or what?

d4nt 15y ago

Creepy yes, I'm not sure about unrealistic, its a scifi story after all so I'm not sure what the benchmark for realism should be. But the whole sex bot thing and the nudity stuck me as unpleasant and unnecessary.

angersock 15y ago
It's an android being assembled. Of course it's going to be nude, to start with. This is a silly complaint.
- d4nt 15y ago
  I disagree. She didn't have to have natural skin tones all over, and they didn't have to do a full frontal shot while she covered herself shyly, and the clothes they used didn't have to be so skimpy.
  - angersock 15y ago
    She's an android declared for office/home/personal use, so yes, skin tones are not unreasonable. She covered herself shyly as a subtle way of displaying her newfound self-awareness--it was a pretty obvious (but well chosen) device. The clothes weren't that skimpy, and even if they were, it would make sense to have as little material being shipped as possible to reduce transportation costs.

samd 15y ago

You weren't the only one who found it awkward and uncomfortable. The bit about sex set the tone for the rest of the piece. The operator calling her 'honey' certainly didn't help. Even so the piece was powerful. I empathized with Kara and it got me thinking about AI and our future. The male-sex fantasy stuff just distracted from the important parts about consciousness, emotion, and rights. It would've been an even more powerful piece had it been more tasteful.

icebraining 15y ago
It's only distracting if you consider it an isolated clip. To me, it seems the premise of a story where she tries to escape, and they wanted us to root for her.
- bsenftner 15y ago
  yes.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
jQueryIsAwesome 15y ago
The piece about sex was the part that give it a little bit of realism. All the other functions are (probably) more cheaply done by a human being (cleaning, cooking) than a robot; but sex is a whole different matter; there is diseases, "high-profile" prostitutes are very expensive and charge by the hour, expectations of a satisfactory response to stimulation, thousands of guys are socially inept or unconfirmed with their girlfriends, etc. The operator calling her "honey" could easily be a test to see if she interacts correctly with a human even when given an sporadic nickname.
- rcthompson 15y ago
  Or maybe the operator gets bored going through the same conversation with hundreds of female-looking robots every day, and just calls her and all the other ones honey just to inject some flavor into the job.

bh42222 15y ago

I found it creepy only because of the uncanny valley. The movement was.... close but not exactly human, and the face was dragging the bottom of the uncanny valley, which actually means it was very close to human. The story itself I took as a metaphor, as in telling this properly would take a long movie, here we're compressing it into a very short one. But it did make me think how I would react to human level AI used as any kind of a slave. That is to say, human level intellect but with no right to primary self determination. To me the existence of something like that would demonstrate that a world where human intellect is enslaved is...at least possible. That to me is, at least indirectly, a threat to real humans' presumed universal right to self-determination. That is why I would support extending basic human rights to human level AI, just to prevent setting a precedent where that level of intellect (even if only in silicon) can be non-free.

DanBC 15y ago
> But it did make me think how I would react to human level AI used as any kind of a slave. That is to say, human level intellect but with no right to primary self determination. Most people (not saying you) just don't care, so long as it's not local. (http://www.irinnews.org/Photo/Details/201106081126140562/Girls-in-Madagascar-are-not-usually-allowed-to-work-as-cattle-herders-but-can-work-as-gold-panners http://www.irinnews.org/Photo/Details/201106081126140562/Gir...) (http://www.irinnews.org/Photo/Details/201106081128350687/The-work-is-both-hard-and-meticulous-as-the-spotting-tiny-flecks-of-gold-usually-much-smaller-than http://www.irinnews.org/Photo/Details/201106081128350687/The...) (http://www.irinnews.org/Photo/Details/2007032524/Children-removing-sand-from-the-banks-of-the-Nile-Malakal-Sudan-16-February-2007-Many-children http://www.irinnews.org/Photo/Details/2007032524/Children-re...) 20% of Bangladesh shipbreaking workforce are children under 15 years old. Work is important, even for children, but this work is so dangerous. (http://www.shipbreakingplatform.org/test-reports-2/ http://www.shipbreakingplatform.org/test-reports-2/)

phillmv 15y ago

I feel like the story would've worked better had the pleading for your life actually been a part of the initialization protocol. The ones that don't cry for help as they're being disassembled actually do get disassembled - how else are you supposed to test the emotion chip?

vyrotek 15y ago
Maybe it was?... Perhaps the man is a very good actor.
- slug 15y ago
  Who said the operator was human? :)

js2 15y ago

Agreed, The Stepford Wives aspect detracts from what is otherwise an impressive technology demo.

xutopia 15y ago

How you feel those emotions tells me that this is an awesome short movie. Regardless of which feelings you felt they pulled it off. You felt compassion for a piece of hardware built for human sexual pleasure. You wouldn't have felt like that about a FleshLight if it spoke back to you. It needed the powerful emotions on display that we saw here.

mindstab 15y ago
no, I felt awkward that people still think it's acceptable to write stories like that. It has nothing to do with caring for her, I feel awkward watching that because I feel bad for society as a whole and women in specific, that we are still being subjected to this dehumanizing masculine sexist fantasy crap. It's a similar feeling if it looked like some company was going to publish a Nazi sex camp rape simulator game. It is the same awkward feeling I get about the Japanese rape and sex game simulators. The whole thing feels like a thin veneer over someones sex fantasy being masqueraded as a social acceptable story. I feel embarrassed that women out there have to see this crap and realize that still how some men view/want to see them, and that they have to live in a world where people think there's nothing wrong with that.
- bullseye 15y ago
  Very well put. I originally had the same thought as xutopia, but after seeing your response, I couldn't agree more.
- lizzard 15y ago
  I completely agree with you, mindstab. I didn't feel sympathy, I felt rage that the dudes writing this story thought it was cool to play around with my actual oppression to make up an imaginary oppression, where both the real and the fake are meant titillates them and other guys, not to speak to women's actual experience.
- tomflack 15y ago
  I'd be extremely curious to see this story of a suddenly sentient android being tested re-written by a gender studies academic. But not just once, I'd like to see it re-written from various historic gender perspectives. Because I can't really judge the dynamic without something to compare it against.

rcthompson 15y ago

Well, the story concept isn't exactly original. Accidentally self-aware robots on the run from the law (or in this case, soon to be on the run) are a pretty common Sci-Fi staple, and the explanation for how it happens is rarely much more plausible than "oops, someone pushed the 'become sentient' button" or "oops, static electricity reconfigured the circuits to become sentient". In any case, the specific script employed in the demo is designed to demonstrate a wide range of emotions in a short span of time, including happiness, wonderment, surprise, disappointment, terror, pleading, and gratefulness, so that the game engine can show off its ability to accurately portray all of these emotions in real-time rendering. To get such a wide emotional range in a short time, you pretty much have to throw in something traumatic. So yes, it's an unrealistic scenario. It's not supposed to be plausible. Any scenario with an accidentally self-aware AI is almost guaranteed to be unrealistic. And yes, it's creepy, especially once she explicitly mentions her sexual submissiveness. But it accomplishes the goal of being a tech demo for rendering human (or human-like) emotions in real-time on current technology. In doing so, it very intentionally employs an unoriginal storyline that more or less recycles the current pop-culture view of artificially intelligent AI's, because the story is really just an excuse to demonstrate real-time rendered emotions. If you're looking for moral and ethical progressiveness, a tech demo may be the wrong place to look.

mortenjorck 15y ago
I actually rather enjoyed it as a dramatic vignette of an inverse version of the Milgram experiment. Instead of protocol leading the subject to abandon empathy and dehumanize a human being, the opposite happens: Empathy leads the subject to humanize that which is (arguably?) not human, despite protocol.
- Fargren 15y ago
  How we read Do Androids Dream with Electric Sheep, or any other novel by Phillip Dick about androids? Or maybe seen Bladerunner? He frequently [and effectively] works with this topic a lot.

Morbird 15y ago

I've seen the clip a few times now, and I agree it's creepy in a bad way, but maybe not the way you describe it from a writers perspective. Here's my take, watch it with the sound off. Notice how much you will end up looking at the eyes to figure out what is going on, and how little said eyes are emoting. I experienced a disconnect between the visual and audio performance. The audio is telling me there is all this drama, despair, etc going on, but the visuals are just not keeping up. To top it off, any adult with normal faculties can tell you the whole thing is trying really hard to push your emotional buttons, something that usually pisses me off.

scott_s 15y ago

It was supposed to be creepy. You were supposed to be uncomfortable with the idea of a sentient sex-slave - which is supposed to get you to start thinking, at what point do you draw the line? If anything, I felt that line of dialogue was too heavy-handed. Hard scifi is not supposed to make you say "Rah-rah, the future will be awesome!" It's supposed to make you think.

DennisP 15y ago

Aren't you anthropomorphizing a bit? Seems to me that for an AI, sex would have about as much of an emotional component as fetching coffee. If a robot for some reason is doing domestic chores, sex wouldn't be any more significant than any other. Of course, the danger is in screwing up attitudes toward human women.

aufreak3 15y ago

Hmmm ... the "guy" could be a self-aware AI as well?