What does it mean to be human? Meat Erica the Android

[BaalChatzaf]

Have a look at this:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/ng-interactive/2017/apr/07/meet-erica-the-worlds-most-autonomous-android-video

Erica does not look quite human but she sounds very much like a person.  The work Dr. Ishigoru and has team have initiated may lead to some very important and at the very least, interesting  results.

Dr. Ishigoru made an interesting remark.  He believes not only that humans have souls,  but everything has a soul.   Could he be onto something?

[Peter]

I don’t think he is into anything by saying everything has a soul. I think “the soul” is only found in beings with a self, and currently it does not include “programmed robots” even if they are programmed to learn and interact. Some pundit on television was saying the first mass produced AI will be sex-bots and he wanted to be taken seriously. I must admit if I were alone on a ship to Mars or a lonely teenage boy on earth I would . . . uh, er . . . of course I would not do the naughty thing you thought I was going to say I would do with my Apple Android, Angelica.  

[BaalChatzaf]

2 hours ago, Peter said:

I don’t think he is into anything by saying everything has a soul. I think “the soul” is only found in beings with a self, and currently it does not include “programmed robots” even if they are programmed to learn and interact. Some pundit on television was saying the first mass produced AI will be sex-bots and he wanted to be taken seriously. I must admit if I were alone on a ship to Mars or a lonely teenage boy on earth I would . . . uh, er . . . of course I would not do the naughty thing you thought I was going to say I would do with my Apple Android, Angelica.  

Can a machine want anything? 

[Peter]

I liked the Character Jude Law played in the movie, “A.I.” He was an android but the character also seemed to possess some human emotions. Could an android be created to feel gratification if it *pleases* a human? (Eventually the word, “programmed” will become quaint and obsolete as I promised Siri). And scientists have already created speaking bots to keep old, shut in humans, socially active by having them interact with an artificial intelligence. Pet bots? Got them. What’s next?

Peter    

A.I. Artificial Intelligence, also known as A.I., is a 2001 American science fiction drama film directed by Steven Spielberg. The screenplay by Spielberg was based on a screen story by Ian Watson and the 1969 short story "Super-Toys Last All Summer Long" by Brian Aldiss. The film was produced by Kathleen Kennedy, Spielberg and Bonnie Curtis. It stars Haley Joel Osment, Jude Law, Frances O'Connor, Brendan Gleeson and William Hurt. Set in a futuristic post-climate change society, A.I. tells the story of David (Osment), a childlike android uniquely programmed with the ability to love.

Development of A.I. originally began with producer-director Stanley Kubrick after he acquired the rights to Aldiss' story in the early 1970s. Kubrick hired a series of writers until the mid-1990s, including Brian Aldiss, Bob Shaw, Ian Watson, and Sara Maitland. The film languished in protracted development for years, partly because Kubrick felt computer-generated imagery was not advanced enough to create the David character, whom he believed no child actor would convincingly portray. In 1995, Kubrick handed A.I. to Spielberg, but the film did not gain momentum until Kubrick's death in 1999. Spielberg remained close to Watson's film treatment for the screenplay.

The film divided critics, with the overall balance being positive, and grossed approximately $235 million. The film was nominated for two Academy Awards at the 74th Academy Awards, for Best Visual Effects and Best Original Score (by John Williams). A.I. is dedicated to Stanley Kubrick.

Jude Law as Gigolo Joe, a male prostitute Mecha programmed with the ability to mimic love, like David, but in a different sense. To prepare for the role, Law studied the acting of Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly.^[4]

[BaalChatzaf]

57 minutes ago, Peter said:

I liked the Character Jude Law played in the movie, “A.I.” He was an android but the character also seemed to possess some human emotions. Could an android be created to feel gratification if it *pleases* a human? (Eventually the word, “programmed” will become quaint and obsolete as I promised Siri). And scientists have already created speaking bots to keep old, shut in humans, socially active by having them interact with an artificial intelligence. Pet bots? Got them. What’s next?

Peter    

Or perhaps, we shall learn someday that we are no less programmed by actions and processes  external to our bodies,  than are the machines we "program". The question of "free will"  may yet be answered in the negative.  Right now we don't know enough of how our  internals work  to give an absolute definite one hundred percent answer  either way.  I am not all that upset with the possibility  that I am a "meat machine"  Nature has had billions of years to learn how to produce such a thing. 

[Peter]

With billions of stars in billions of galaxies and billions of years passing, I think the search for extraterrestrial life should continue here on earth. I know the nay sayer's  liken it to looking for the Loch Ness monster, but I disagree. Life either started here or was transported here, so in either case it shows a "likelihood" that life can exist elsewhere. SETI is worth the dollars.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Meat Erica...

Is that some kind of burger joint?

To go along with, say, Fish Anthony?

   

Michael

[BaalChatzaf]

2 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Meat Erica...

Is that some kind of burger joint?

To go along with, say, Fish Anthony?

   

Michael

A pun on the fact that Erica looks flesh and blood  but is not.