This space served as the collaborative class blog for English 26 – Vampires, Monsters, Humans: The Limits of the Human in the Fall semester of 2010 through the English Department at Duke University.

It seems like artificial intelligence doesn’t really gain a “human” status until the robot lives at least part of the human experience. The clones produced in Never Let Me Go, although we’re not entirely certain how they’re produced, could technically be considered artificial intelligence. They may be biologically human, but their problematic ontological status will always prevent them from being truly “human”.

In the literature we’ve touched on in class so far, humans can be seen marginalizing and dehumanizing artificial intelligence that has reached a certain threshold of uncanniness. In Bicentennial Man, for example, Robin Williams’ robot character was found to be legally subhuman when he began to request treatment as a human (not entirely sure of plot). Similarly, as seen in the closing of Hailsham, the ebb and tide of social stigmas surrounding clones ultimately decided that marginalization was preferable to even flirting with the idea of integration in Never Let Me Go.

This emotional robot struck me as a bit “uncanny” in the sense that it reminds us of how mechanistic our thinking is. Some scientists quantified human emotion and successfully re-conveyed it through a bizarre robotic skull. Perhaps humans are more fundamentally similar to their robotic counterparts (humanoids?) than it first appears.

The fact that a theologian would be recruited to make a robot was a strange concept to me. The engineers seek the advice of the theologian because they want to incorporate the “culture and spiritual dimensions” of humanity through the “wisdom of religious studies.”  This approach seems flawed because religion in itself is only a subset of humanity, and therefore the conclusions that a theologian can draw from religious study is also limited. I guess this speaks to how challenging it is to truly define humanity, because you would never be able to incorporate a broad enough array of sources.

The intrinsic value of a robot, or the point at which they achieve intrinsic value, is also a fascinating idea. I would think that this would be impossible to define. Even the point at which humans have intrinsic value is contested; some believe that abortion is morally wrong, while others support abortion until the third trimester. If we cannot even come to a consensus on when we become intrinsically valuable, how could we possibly decide this for a robot? Also, religion plays a predominant role in the argument against abortion. Because artificial intelligence is clearly not in any religious text, we would not even have religion to help draw moral conclusions.

I also thought that the inseparability of the mind with the body that Foerst suggests is important to the discussions we’ve had in class. For Foerst, the mind must be a part of the body in order for it to develop in a way that we would define as human. I’ve never thought about this, but now I would have to agree. I think that my own perception and understanding of the world is directly related to how I interact with it – through my body. My human body gives me certain limitations through which I can define the world.

I have to say, the work that is being done on robots is pretty impressive.  I do not, however, find it entirely mind-blowing.

In my opinion, the concept of a robot being more ‘human’ because it shows or reads emotion is rather simplistic.  Yes, it is important that if we ever want to create life-like AI robots that they be capable of reading and expressing emotion.  On the other hand, I do not think that it is a singular thing that we can say would separate the human from the other.  There have been some very interesting studies with dogs that show humans are capable of reading the emotion even through simple barks (Pongracz, P., C. Molnar, A. Miklosi, and V. Csanyi. “Human Listeners Are Able to Classify Dog Barks Recorded in Different Situations.” Journal of Comparative Psychology119.2 (2005): 136-44.).  By recording barks, these researchers were able to get humans to correctly identify the emotion the dog was feeling during the bark, be it distress, happiness, or alarm.  Now, before you think of arguing that this sort of reading emotion could be exclusive to us humans, consider the other side of things.  Dogs have been shown to have the same bias for which side of the face to look at that adult humans have when they are trying to interpret someone’s emotions (Pongracz, P., C. Molnar, A. Miklosi, and V. Csanyi. “Human Listeners Are Able to Classify Dog Barks Recorded in Different Situations.” Journal of Comparative Psychology 119.2 (2005): 136-44.).

To reiterate: while I think it important that conveyance and interpretation of emotion is important in our creation of life-like AI and robots, I do not think that these aspects are things that are critical in the development of said robots.  (Not only that, but the Kismet robot looked fairly creepy and did not appeal to my emotions as Dr. Anne Foerst felt)

The expressions of the AI and my emotional response to them, like Dr. Foerst mentioned of us wanting to comfort her when we ourselves are sad, makes me feel somewhat manipulated. Since AI’s are of our own creation, I feel not only affected by the AI but also by the AI’s maker. The sense of manipulation comes from thinking that some maker has exploited what makes us humans to build a machine that knows how to optimize what it is built for. In that sense, I feel weak relative to the robot because my creation was not planned (random probability of a select pool of genes) while the robot is crafted and perfected.

I think this is what may contribute to the fear of AI. The sense that the best of the best can be built makes us feel to some degree extinct. What will keep humans from being replaced? This other is something that is not just different but may be different and more advanced. The creation of AI may also be a conflict of human’s two wants: the want to be the best and hence ability to produce anything that we imagine and the want to stay at the top of the food chain which may not be possible if we produce AI that is better than ourselves.

For our last class, we’ll finish up our conversation about Avatar and then have a brief conversation about Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the “future” of this question we’ve returned to throughout the semester: what is human?

Before class, please read this article from the New York Times in 2000: “A Conversation with Anne Foerst: Do Androids Dream? M.I.T. Working on It.”

Mentioned in this article is KISMET, the “emotional” robot.  Take a look at these two very short clips of this robot, which mimics visual expressions:

I really liked the ideas that Michael brought up in his earlier post, and I would like to expand upon these (leaving behind the obvious racial views and awkward plot stretches that we read about in the other blogs).

I was really struck while watching Avatar by the juxtaposition posed from Sam Worthington’s character.  His search for his own identity in the movie is very striking.  He loves his new Na’vi body because it gives him mobility again, and after years of being a paraplegic that is the ultimate reason why he joined up for this cause.  Even though he talks to Neytiri, during a very emotional yet extremely awkward and cliche moment, about how he soon found love and then his mission was forgotten, it was the new freedom his Na’vi body gave him that he truly cared about.  What I noticed was the scene where he gets his ikran, the flying beasts the Na’vi use, and Jake says, “I was born to do this.”  The character of Jake is trying to relate to us the freedom he finds by not being tied down to his crippled body.  Humans are born to walk, stand, sit, run (not really to fly though…but some people certainly find a sense of purpose there) and it certainly sucks when you can’t do those.  Having my own foot injuries and being a runner, it truly feels very  strange to not be able to use your legs properly.  I choose to read into the Avatar storyline (to take a step away from the vapid and unoriginal plot, yet stunning visuals) the idea that part of the human identity is based on our ability to use our legs properly.  Hell, the reason we are so advanced intellectually is because we are bipedal (for further reading if you’re interested, look into Born to Run by Christopher McDougall).  Without his legs, Jake felt like an outsider among the humans (I’m sure the same could be said about any important part of the body, but here we have the legs).

While I certainly see where someone like Newitz thinks of “Avatar” as a white guilt story, I really didn’t get that feeling at all while watching the movie. I agree that the movie sends a very strong message to those who watch it, but I think she’s missing the point. It’s not about white guilt or something that happened 300 years ago with the Native Americans; it’s about what we’re doing to our planet right now.

This is most critically captured in the scene where Jake talks to Eywa; he mentions the way humans have left a world that is “no longer green” and pleads for it to save Pandora from the same fate. This is a story about environmentalism, not racism. Sure, the Na’vi are about to be driven away, but what does the movie focus on: the destruction of Home Tree, the Tree of Souls, Eywa, etc. Even though many Na’vi die, the big emotional scenes are when the Na’vi see the nature around them being destroyed. It’s also important to remember the reason why they are on Pandora—it’s not to colonize or civilize the Na’vi, it’s to get “unobtainium” (very creative name, James Cameron). If you look at our world today, we’re destroying the rainforests for logging, harming our air for industry, and destroying land to build cities. These issues are what Avatar is all about.

While I agree that there are similarities with respect to the Pocahontas story and others, I don’t think that’s about sending a message, even subliminally. I think it’s just an easy story to write: hero comes into a new land, falls in love with the local princess, and learns their ways. It’s happened over and over throughout human history—and not just in “white” stories. It’s just an age-old archetypal story. Cameron picked something that would resonate with his viewers, not something to agonize over whether what the British and Spanish did 400 years ago was moral. I don’t know of very many people who came out of the movie talking about Native Americans or other races; I just know that almost everyone I talked to was discussing the environmental issues the movie brings up. I think people like Newitz are simply reading too much into it and missing the major point of Avatar.

I don’t really see why critics like Annalee Newitz feel the need to hone in the racial aspects of Avatar. Sure, Avatar does mirror other movies such as Pocahontas, and can therefore be seen to be a story about “white guilt” and the need to “make things right” in some sense (fantasy worlds can be so self satisfying, right?). However, to do so ignores the differences inherent in James Cameron’s story that go beyond just the colonization of Native American lands. Newitz points to the beauty of Pandora representing in some way the lost natural beauty of the western hemisphere, and concludes that this is pandering to white guilt over “the rich, beautiful land America could still be if white people hadn’t paved it over with concrete and strip malls.” What she ignores is Jake Sully’s warning to the Na’vi in telling them not to trust the humans based on the fact that they had destroyed their own planet. In this sense, I interpreted Avatar as a plee to humanity to stop rampant pollution and excess overuse of earth’s natural resources.

Pandora is a planet that is very much alive. Its inhabitants can connect to it, drawing knowledge and power from the wisdom of those past who feed its life force. I believe what Cameron is really getting at is trying to instill in moviegoers a sense of pride and devotion to the land that they themselves draw energy from. As a parallel to Pandora, humans rely on the earth to provide materials for creating the comforts of our society, food in the form of plants (and an animal kingdom that relies at its most base level on said plants), and similar to Pandora, all life forms are destined to one day to return to the ground and fuel the cycle of life once more. Though this is just one interpretation of the themes presented in Avatar, in my personal opinion I feel that this universal message fits more with Cameron’s own passion for environmentalism (he has proved as much in his devotion to ocean conservation efforts). Moreover, Avatar’s worldwide success (it was screened in over 65 countries and did over $1 billion in gross revenues) shows that the movie had some appeal beyond that of just pandering to white America’s need to gain some symbolic retribution for its historical wrongdoings. In fact, while Newitz contends that screenwriters need to stop making “every story about people of color into a story about being white,” I find Newitz’s claim to be more inspired by notions of racism than I did Avatar. Arguing that Avatar is wrong because it is a story about white people’s need to overcome their own racism is in itself racist in that she places this interpretation as more prevalent than, what I at least perceived to be, the movie’s primary message of conservation. Though as I myself am not caucasian, I could just be missing the point.

While watching Avatar, I definitely recongized the Pocahontas theme other posts have talked about. Of course, Jake Sully represents John Smith and Neytiri represents Pocahontas. I also recognized the parallel between the movie Dances with Wolves. All these films take a man from a civilized world and place him in a less technically advanced, more primitive environment, where he becomes the outsider. Eventually, the outsider is accepted by the “People,” and everyone lives happily ever after until race becomes questioned and the natives vs. civilized people battle ensues.

The topic of race is very interesting and pertininent to this movie. However, I did not agree with Annalee Newitz’s interpretation of the movie. When I was watching the movie, I did not view Jack Sully as “the white man,” but rather as representative of the entire human race. For me, the question of race wasn’t between humans themselves but between Avatars and humans. I can understand the similarities between the white man vs the Native Americans history, but I think this movie extends beyond the typical black and white racial questions, I agreed with Mikhail Lyubansky’s interpretation of race in the sense that Jake is “bi-racial.” I definitely agree because he can identify with both sides no matter what body he is in. In the end when he chooses to side with the Avatars, it is not because he disowns the human race, but rather he is joining the side that is right and not committing genocide. I found it interesting when the Colonel asked if he felt guilty for betraying his own race, since the Colonel himself was betraying the moral standards of humanity. Furthermore, Jake is biracial as an Avatar since his DNA is half Avatar and half human! Consequently, I saw the film more as a biracial film than a film produced by the “white man.”

I also definitely agreed that this story was more of an immigrant story than a tourist story. Jake was searching for a new meaning in life and a new purpose at the beginning of the movie, and through his experience on Pandora, he was able to find it. He finds and builds a home in a distant world. A tourist would see the sites and leave, but Jake has no intention of ever leaving