Just a Machine: Difference between revisions
m
clean up
No edit summary |
m (clean up) |
||
Line 1:
{{trope}}
[[File:
{{quote|'''Mr. Kornada:''' Did an A.I. come in here? Where is it?
Line 17:
To them, it's [[Title Drop|"just a machine"]]. Its only value is the monetary expense incurred in building, cloning, coding or buying it. [[Expendable Clone|It has no rights]], you can't even be accused of animal cruelty for beating it (at worst, of being wasteful or having poor taste), even when it's unique and has [[No Plans, No Prototype, No Backup]]. The humans will doubt or deny that they can feel, and if they ''can'' these feelings are ignored or treated as less valid than a humans' smallest whimsy.
It should come as no surprise that these humans are keen on enslaving them, or if at war to think nothing of killing them. Its destruction is never considered a moral
Even if they are right, you have to wonder just how psychologically healthy it is to mistreat something that is 100% human in the [[Uncanny Valley]].
Line 31:
** And in ''[[Pluto]]'' as well. Notably, {{spoiler|a robot boy is going to be sold for parts despite still being partly alive. Another robot buys him to raise as a child.}}
{{quote|'''Junkyard Worker:''' [[Arc Words|500 Zeus a body.]]}}
* In the [[Mahou Sensei Negima]] chapter ''The Logic of Illogic'', Hakase viewed Chachamaru as
* In ''[[Crest of the Stars]]'', the Abh, a genetically engineered race, regard themselves as still being humans, but according to enemy propoganda, 'Abh aren't people, they're organic machines', which is readily admitted as their true origin by an Abh not ten seconds after the propaganda is shown. They were specifically meant for long distance space exploration before faster than light technology had been fully developed.
* The CC Corp in ''[[.hack]]'' treats AIs as errant data and nothing more.
Line 87:
== Live-Action TV ==
* In ''[[Battlestar Galactica Reimagined]]'', many humans have this attitude towards the Cylons, and are clearly wrong, but the near extermination of humanity is bound to breed hatred.
* Both versions of ''[[The Outer Limits]]'' adapted "I Robot" (based on thee [[Adam Link]] story by Eando Binder, not [[I, Robot|the book]] by [[Isaac Asimov]]). Each epsidoe has the robot put on trial. Part of the case was whether he was a sapient being deserving of rights under the US constitution or
** For bonus points, {{spoiler|in the remake he sacrificed himself saving the prosecuting attorney who had argued against his sapience. In the original, he's destroyed while saving a little girl he'd accidentally injured earlier in the episode.}}
* The ''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation|Star Trek the Next Generation]]'' episode "Measure of a Man" put Data on trial to determine whether he was a sentient being with rights as a Federation citizen, or merely a machine and thus Federation property.
Line 116:
'''Clark:''' [[What Measure Is a Non-Human?|You're not a man]]. }}
** Then Clark kills him with a smile on his face.
* ''[[Power Rangers SPD]]'' has an episode featuring a robot (well, she's called a "cyborg", but all other dialogue in the episode indicates that she's 100% machine) who is about as [[Ridiculously-Human Robots|ridiculously human]] as you can get, and yet, several characters insist on giving her the
Line 137:
== Web Comics ==
* In ''[[Artifice]]'', two security guards taunt the android soldier Deacon in the opening scene, referring to him as just "an appliance"
* In ''[[Freefall]]'', Florence Ambrose (An anthropomorphic red wolf) is classified as an AI, and as such, is treated like
{{quote|'''[http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff1600/fc01528.htm Mayor]:''' See? It's made out of carbon and proteins, but it's just a machine. Now do you feel less guilty about giving it orders?
'''Mayor's aide:''' I guess. Still, it seems so lifelike. }}
Line 163:
* There's at least one or two episodes of ''[[Teen Titans (animation)|Teen Titans]]'' all about Cyborg realizing he's "more than just a robot".
* Averted ''hard'' in the ''[[Transformers]]'' metaseries. While some ill-informed fleshlings are so foolish as to refer to Cybertronian life as being "just machines", it is an established fact, proven several times over that Transformers have souls (they call them Sparks, and they have a special container in their chest to hold it), an extant God (Primus, whose sleeping body ''is'' the Transformer homeworld of Cybertron), and an afterlife (the Well of All Sparks, were All are One. It is proven, but nonetheless mysterious). Interestingly none of the above is established for the aforementioned fleshlings - meaning that, given the evidence, it is entirely possible that the machines are more "human" than the humans, by the definitions humans use.
** The robots built by Sumdac's company in ''[[Transformers Animated]]'' to perform manual labour and generally run Detroit, however, are indeed
* Played for laughs in an episode of [[Robot Chicken]], where a spoof of [[I, Robot]] had Rosie from [[The Jetsons]] being accused of murdering George. At Rosie's trial she claims to be innocent and the judge remarks "Well, maybe, but just to be safe...", Rosie is then promptly smashed.
* Invoked in the ''[[The Animatrix]]'' segment ''The Second Renaissance'' in the same way as the [[Outer Limits]] episode mentioned above; Does a robot have rights or can it be scrapped whenever the owner wants to?
| |||