Androids and life

Only a brief musing, because I've written nothing here this week - not really in the habit yet. Just caught a tiny fraction of an Outer Limits episode with Heather Graham in it - don't know which, or when it was, although obsessive researcher that I am I'll now have to look it up...

It was called "Resurrection", and was broadcast early '96, so right around the time Heather Graham started getting famous. She's always an example I use of someone who's been around far longer than you expect - did you know she played the twins' mother in Twins? When giving birth, obviously, not the old ladt at the end. I didn't even have to look that up - that's how detailed and sad my film knowledge is.

I digress. The basic premise is that humanity's wiped itself out, leaving a few hundred androids on earth, getting by as best they can. Reading the plot summary online there's more to it than that, but it's that bit that piqued my interest.

Assuming we get to the point of realistic AI in the future, or maybe even to genuine "I", just in an artificial lifeform, I find it hard to imagine that they'd be too bothered about self-preservation. Let's start with the premise that life is ultimately pointless. I really need to get comments working on this blog, because people will probably disagree, but I'll explain.

If you're religious, then broadly speaking life is a gift from God (or gods, or whoever, but we'll keep it simple) that you should be grateful for, worship appropriately, etc. If you're not, then that's not a factor. For either camp, however, life is largely self-preservation, enjoying yourself, fulfilling responsibilities to others, etc. Whether you're religious or not, the day to day necessities boil down to that. I felt I should mention religion because it's an obvious factor given our culture, but given that both groups generally get on with life in much the same way, it's clearly not a significant difference.

The end is different, of course - you could argue that believers are playing the long game, hoping to do well enough in this life to prove themselves worthy for the next. By contrast the non-believers, with nothing to aim for after death, don't have to worry about specific behaviours beyond the laws and conventions of wherever they happen to live. Which by and large match up with religious behaviours anyway.

I'm digressing to cover bases. From a non-believer's viewpoint, life is ultimately meaningless. It's a fascinating experience, of course, with plenty of things to appreciate, people to love, etc. etc., but there's no end result, so arguably what's the point? Of course we can answer that - we have human experiences, pain, pleasure, all sorts of things. However fleeting or good/bad our lives may be, the vast majority of people want to see them through to their natural conclusion, otherwise as soon as we could string a thought together we'd think "it's all the same in the end, might as well kill myself now".

Perhaps that's what some suicidal people think - I'd argue that's perfect clarity (or impatience), but I'm fairly sure if that ever happens, those people are a tiny tiny proportion. Anyway.

My point is that in the Outer Limits scenario, androids are essentially in the non-believer position, but hampered by computer-like logic. These aren't robots many generations down the line which have evolved, developed, formed their own culture and forgotten about people, hence, their origins. These are relatively recent creations, left with no "masters".

Given that, I find it hard to imagine that they'd bother carrying on. They're intelligent, rather than just programmed to behave a certain way, they know there's nothing awaiting them after death/shutdown, but equally there are no earthly pleasures, for want of a better phrase, to particuarly entertain them on earth. As such, knowing the futility of pretty much any actions they take, I'd imagine they'd just deactivate themselves after the last human died, rather than continuing on as best they can.

That's perhaps slightly nihilistic, and the thought that's just occurred to me won't change that - perhaps they just keep on going through fear of the unknown. Given they're alive/functioning, provided it's not too unpleasant there's no real need to stop. Which could well apply to lots of real people too. There's a cheery thought...