ST:TNG and Augmented Personhood
Feb. 15th, 2014 08:02 pmStar Trek: The Next Generation was formative to how I see the world and understand the possibilities for the nature of the future. It was an ideally utopian place, where we could all seek what we determined was best for ourselves.
So it's really weird to look back at episodes like 'The Nth Degree,' wherein Lt. Reg Barclay merges his mind with the ship's computer, and find myself disappointed by the lack of nuance, the lack of attempted understanding, the presupposition that fear and distrust of a hyper-intelligent cyborg is warranted, because it will Think It Knows Better Than Us, but how could it because we're HUMAN, god damn it, and that means we're the special unique snowflake babies of Reason and ~*~*~*~FEeeeeEEEElings~*~*~*~.
Anything that makes humans more machine-like, or any machine intelligence that doesn't Know Its Place (insert paper idea, "Lt. Cmdr. Data: The 24th Century's AGI Uncle Tom," here), is usually to be distrusted in TNG, for the usual reason: It will try to overthrow us. It will try to turn against us. It will try to remove humanity's [Something]-Given Rightâ„¢ to self-determination and freewill and Not Being Robots.
We weren't ready, when TNG was made. We weren't in a place, as a culture, where we could have these kinds of conversations, with any nuance.
Please tell me you're ready, now.
So it's really weird to look back at episodes like 'The Nth Degree,' wherein Lt. Reg Barclay merges his mind with the ship's computer, and find myself disappointed by the lack of nuance, the lack of attempted understanding, the presupposition that fear and distrust of a hyper-intelligent cyborg is warranted, because it will Think It Knows Better Than Us, but how could it because we're HUMAN, god damn it, and that means we're the special unique snowflake babies of Reason and ~*~*~*~FEeeeeEEEElings~*~*~*~.
Anything that makes humans more machine-like, or any machine intelligence that doesn't Know Its Place (insert paper idea, "Lt. Cmdr. Data: The 24th Century's AGI Uncle Tom," here), is usually to be distrusted in TNG, for the usual reason: It will try to overthrow us. It will try to turn against us. It will try to remove humanity's [Something]-Given Rightâ„¢ to self-determination and freewill and Not Being Robots.
We weren't ready, when TNG was made. We weren't in a place, as a culture, where we could have these kinds of conversations, with any nuance.
Please tell me you're ready, now.