Happy Easter, readers! And I’m sorry, but I’m about to
wax philosophical again. The topic today is something that touches close to my
home and heart, though; specifically, science fiction video games. Even more
specifically, Blizzard’s whirlwind-success first-person-shooter game Overwatch.
I do not have this game, and that’s not really a
complaint. The game has something that intrigues me more on an authorial level
rather than a competitive one. A game really sells itself to me if it has two
important features: one, sci-fi elements (of course), and two, a decent
storyline behind it. A lot of my favorite electronic pastimes have these
elements—Portal/Portal 2, Invisible Inc.,
Subnautica—and Overwatch has a
significant amount of story included with the action. Just breeze through the Media page on their
website; there are enough comics, trailers, and video clips to compose a novel,
albeit with a slightly lightweight and fragmented narrative. The story’s
premise is not complicated. During a humans-versus-robots (robots hereafter
referred to as “omnics”) war, a team of random, superhero-esque fighters known
as “Overwatch” rose up to bring about peace between the people and the
machines. Then Overwatch was disbanded; I think it was because of collateral
damage or disregard-of-protocol or something…but anyway, now the team has been
re-formed. A terrorist group by the callsign “Talon” has arisen, seeking to
destroy both the world’s guardians and the harmony of the futuristic society.
That’s it in a low-resolution nutshell.
I spend an inordinate amount of time deciding whose side
I would be on if I were an inhabitant—or active combatant—in this world. No
matter how cool they may appear, I do not favor Talon; they’re your pretty
basic kind of evil.
However…I’d hesitate to sign the Overwatch contract too.
Why? Well, there’s a little hiccup in this future
society that I cannot overlook. The peace of this society is founded on the
unity between humans and robotic omnics, which sounded pretty nice—until I ran
across the full implication. It seems to be a promotion of an extreme unity; I’m not just talking
about unity of purpose, being on the same side of peace and justice and all
that. No, the sympathetic characters stress an actual unity, the idea that there is no difference here between
human and machine, that they are “all one within the iris” (that quote can be
found here).
Sorry to be Sir Stormcloud Sonnek over here, but…um, no.
That’s not right. My inner G.K. Chesterton-fueled reason will not accept that
dogma, and now I hope I can adequately explain why. Hold on to something; it’s
about to get complicated in here.
To begin: I’m looking over my room right now. I see a
lamp. I see a wristwatch on my wrist. I see a laptop—I’m typing on it right
now. These useful, working items did not come into being on their own; they
were designed and created by humans (you may say they were created by other
machines, but consider this; who created those machines? And the machines
before them…?). So first of all, humans hold the priority as creators of the
mechanical. Next, it’s true that my wristwatch has more “intelligence” than the
lamp—this timepiece knows all the
world’s time zones, people—and my laptop definitely
has more intelligence than the watch. Some computers, like Cleverbot, can
imitate a kind of real intelligence, carrying on a conversation or running a
complex theorem. The omnics of Overwatch have even more intelligence than this;
they evidently have achieved self-awareness, a personal will, consciences, and
even deeper transcendence. But are they the same as humans? No. Still machines.
The level of intelligence does not determine what a thing is at its essence. A
mentally handicapped human is still a human. An artificial intelligence is
still a computer. So, on a scientific level, omnics are not the same as humans.
That should be fairly obvious (and genuinely not racist).
But what about on the level of dignity? One of the
backstories in Overwatch is that
omnics were, and somewhat still are, treated as slaves for labor or soldiers
for war, even though they still have intellects and wills. Should they have
equal dignity as humans? My answer is…not enough data. See, a machine is
essentially a puppet to its programming; as any computer science major will
tell you, a computer says whatever the programmer tells it to say. The human
provides the input, the machine generates output. If it’s an incredibly complex
program, then it might be able to imitate intelligence, and if it’s even more
sophisticated it may even imitate the will; but even so, an imitation is not as
good as the genuine intellect and will that a human possesses. However, the Overwatch devotee—or person who read the
last pargraph, I suppose—will argue that the omnics have self-awareness and
self-transcendence, operating their own minds as people do. My answer is…really?
From our side of the video game, we can’t be sure. The omnics could be running
on hyper-hyper-hyper-advanced software, for all we geniuses know. But what if
they really do have a genuine, self-contained intellect and will—and maybe even
emotions? Then sh*t gets complicated.
Humans and omnics still won’t be the same, but those machines will have much closer dignity to us than my lamp
does to me. Again, not the same, but with a closer dignity—possibly equal, if
they somehow have acquired human souls.
Which brings me to my conclusion—how these omnics should
ideally be treated. My proposal is thus: in this aspect, Overwatch has the
right idea. Treat them as you would a human. Here is my example: suppose I
lined up a bunch of objects and started to punch them. Both you and the
gathering masses would be fine with me pulverizing the pillow. You’d be OK with
me creaming a clock. But you might start to get nervous if I kicked the
mannequin. There would be some alarm if I smashed a statue or destroyed a
recording of a person speaking. The point is, the closer the thing is to a
human, the more dignity the thing has by association. Omnics? In both the
worst- and the best-case scenarios, they bear a really close resemblance to the human, and therefore have an
intrinsic dignity that is close to our own. Slavery is out. Exploitation is not
good. If it can act like a human, then it’s good for the omnic—and for the human—if the machine is treated with
respect. Leave the manual labor to the actual machines.
Phew. As you can see, that would be an awful lot to cram
into a cartoon, and I didn’t even cover the idea of the Singularity (a person’s
mind being successfully transplanted into a machine). I know that Overwatch is trying to promote unity
both in its world and ours, but it might go a little overboard in its
hyper-unified philosophy. That’s all. Good for me I was born in this century;
otherwise Overwatch would probably have to shoot me in the face for my constant
and unintelligible pontificating.
Now go celebrate Easter or something.
