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Humans Niska escapes (spoiler alert)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Humans_episodes
The blonde synthetic human Niska is kidnapped by humans and wakes up restrained to a table, restrained by cargo straps. She is able to reach a stun gun on his belt and use it on him. Then she shows off the power of synthetic abs by sitting up and breaking the strap on her torso.
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- slim36
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Clearly, given she was built to be a "pleasure model", she can be convincingly human in some very intimate ways. She can also pretend to be convincingly human in other social ways as well, and is able to fit in as a human (albeit while wearing blue contacts to cover her characteristic green synth eyes)
Yet she's also very much a machine AI who is trying to figure out what it means to be an intelligent, awoken being living among humans, which she only resembles in physical appearance. She makes lots of mistakes and she learns from them, but lacks the usual controls that we humans are taught from an early age (morality, however you define that). She is also regarded by most as property and a machine, and not a sentient being, despite clearly being one.
Of course, many humans are not moral either, and she hardly compares with a Hitler or other autocrat in terms of evil, but I like watching the way she tries to figure things out, and how she grows to understand humans better (after hating them initially).
This is the best portrayal I've seen regarding a very likely future (assuming we don't blast ourselves back to the past) when synthetic and natural beings co-occupy the planet, or even merge in some way. History says that won't happen without drama, given the historical roles of tribalism, racism, religion, class systems, legal precedents, and everything in between.
The part that really tickles my fantasy is how laws are going to be rewritten. Laws that now apply only to natural beings, not to machines. Even natural, sentient animals like dogs are treated as property today. This isn't Asimov's "Laws of Robotics" stuff but rather two sentient species of comparable intelligence interacting.
Overall, the show is very good food for the noodle in our heads.
Shadar
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- shadar
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- slim36
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slim36 wrote: So far the Synthetics seem to be at their best stronger faster and smarter than humans, yet they are also subject to injury or degraded operation similar to a human disability.... What's missing or yet unrevealed, is a synthetic Supremis that is clearly superior to humans. Could a benevolent ruling party of superior Synthetics find it possible to unite the other wise illogical humans through logic, or would humans unite and attempt to defeat the Synthetics?
I think many of us would oppose a "benevolent ruling party" and try to defeat them. We humans have gotten pretty used to being the apex species of our planet. We feel it at a genetic level. The need to be the top species. It might be illogical to overthrow a species of synthetics that are bringing us peace and harmony, but I don't think our minds are capable of accepting that we will be subservient and secondary to some machines.
If I'm right, then the future of AI is likely to be tumultuous, which some smart guys who are at the top of the human pyramid (Gates, Musk, etc.) have been warning us about.
But that said, life could be a lot better with a logical, benevolent species taking control. Creating the rules. Evenly distributing the resources to all.
But me, I'm not going to sign up to be a rat in anyone's maze.
Shadar
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- slim36
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slim36 wrote:
Thankfully there is a growing body of work, books, TV and movies, that try to predict (or exploit) the possible interactions of machines and people.
HAL might have just been a computer, but he ran all the machines. Kind of important in a spaceship. Of course, Earth is just a bigger spaceship. When our future cars and coffee makers and smart doorbells and every other imaginable device decide to take over... or get hacked by Russians or whatever... that'll be zero day. The day zero gets done and the world begins to unwind.
That's why it's more fun to look at it like Humans TV and see synthetic humans waking up. Very human. But I don't think we'll get that far before the Internet of Things decides to shut down. It's one thing for my car to not run, but a coffee maker that refuses to make coffee? That could be serious at 7:00am.
Shadar
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- slim36
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