<story><title>Kara Is Self-Aware</title><url>http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2012/03/kara-quantic-dream/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>mindstab</author><text>Did anyone else find the whole scene unrealistic and creepy in the not good way.&lt;p&gt;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?&lt;p&gt;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&apos;s life, then the sex with her isn&apos;t guilty because she&apos;s aware and her consent means something? But the power balance is so off, he controls her life, she&apos;s... grateful?  That&apos;s not a good start. And she&apos;ll be at this disadvantage everywhere. Anyone could turn her in. She&apos;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&apos;t thrill me.  Especially when they are clearly sexualized as such&lt;p&gt;Would anyone else have an easier time sharing my creepiness if:
- the robot had been a little boy for sex purposes?&lt;p&gt;I found the dynamic unlikely and if we reach a world where we can accidentally give AI consciousness and we still haven&apos;t gotten the artificial civil rights movement off the ground... 
Ooph.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>rcthompson</author><text>Well, the story concept isn&apos;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 &quot;oops, someone pushed the &apos;become sentient&apos; button&quot; or &quot;oops, static electricity reconfigured the circuits to become sentient&quot;.&lt;p&gt;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.&lt;p&gt;So yes, it&apos;s an unrealistic scenario. It&apos;s not supposed to be plausible. Any scenario with an accidentally self-aware AI is almost guaranteed to be unrealistic. And yes, it&apos;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&apos;s, because the story is really just an excuse to demonstrate real-time rendered emotions. If you&apos;re looking for moral and ethical progressiveness, a tech demo may be the wrong place to look.</text></comment>
<story><title>Kara Is Self-Aware</title><url>http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2012/03/kara-quantic-dream/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>mindstab</author><text>Did anyone else find the whole scene unrealistic and creepy in the not good way.&lt;p&gt;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?&lt;p&gt;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&apos;s life, then the sex with her isn&apos;t guilty because she&apos;s aware and her consent means something? But the power balance is so off, he controls her life, she&apos;s... grateful?  That&apos;s not a good start. And she&apos;ll be at this disadvantage everywhere. Anyone could turn her in. She&apos;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&apos;t thrill me.  Especially when they are clearly sexualized as such&lt;p&gt;Would anyone else have an easier time sharing my creepiness if:
- the robot had been a little boy for sex purposes?&lt;p&gt;I found the dynamic unlikely and if we reach a world where we can accidentally give AI consciousness and we still haven&apos;t gotten the artificial civil rights movement off the ground... 
Ooph.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>samd</author><text>You weren&apos;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 &apos;honey&apos; certainly didn&apos;t help.&lt;p&gt;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&apos;ve been an even more powerful piece had it been more tasteful.</text></comment>