On a weird side note, the first thing that popped into my head in class when we were talking about the creepy side of sympathy was sympathy pregnancies. This is “a condition in which the husband or partner of an expectant mother experiences some of the same symptoms and behavior as the mother.”

I’ve always teased my dad about having a prolonged sympathy pregnancy, but I was thinking about the term and why it and actual cases of male pregnancy are looked upon with such curiosity. Obviously we associate pregnancy with women – men simply don’t have the anatomy – but there’s something almost uncanny about the idea that a man’s body could start to mirror a woman’s.

If empathy is seeing yourself in someone and their circumstances and thus feeling for them, the reverse of that would be feeling for them (sympathetically) such that you actually become them.

I’m taking social organization of Law right now, and one of our readings focused on a case where a boy from a disadvantaged background committed a murder. That he did it was not in doubt, and the jury was composed of people who all to some degree believed in and supported the death penalty. When the time came to sentence him, however, none voted for capital punishment.

At some point in the trial, as the defendant’s story had unfolded, the jury began to see him in themselves and people they knew. They could identify him as human despite his brutal crime, and they chose to save him. It is not just our ability to empathize with others that makes us human, but also the ability for others to empathize with us.

This is where “Do Androids Dream” comes up. In one of our classes someone noted that they almost empathized with the androids, because they were being hunted down. Although we are told that they are not human, and that they are dangerous and deceitful, that they struggle at all for their ‘lives’ is a very human thing, one that we can relate to.  Especially because of their human appearance and Deckard’s affair, I felt the line between human and android was constantly being pushed and challenged. I think this also ties back to Never Let Me Go, where some people in the class found it difficult to reconcile the characters passivity with their humanity. But although they did not try to escape, they exhibited love, anguish, despair – all of which spoke to their humanity.

I was very impressed with the dynamics of the class this semester: everyone listened and was respectful of others’ opinions.  Nonetheless, I was always very careful of what I said because, as a white female, I sometimes questioned my authority on any subject in the class. [By authority I mean in terms of others because I realize that none of us can actually claim authority on the subjects we discussed.]  This then ties into the Piper article where she says that African Americans often feel the need to prove they have endured suffering when sometimes they haven’t.  Therefore, any student in the class could have felt uncomfortable claiming any authority over a thought or point, but that is not always given attention.  Even in this blog post, I am thinking of my words more carefully than I would normally in order to express myself on one hand in a provocative way as to encourage discussion of this subject, but on the other hand in a very neutral and unoffensive way.  I haven’t come to a conclusion on any of this but I wanted to put it out there and hear people’s feedback!

Eric commented that, “Certainly if a robot producing corporation like the one described in Asimov’s tales ever wanted to start mass producing robots for a wide audience, with the expectation of trading them in for “new models,” dehumanizing them would be absolutely critical. Otherwise people would become attached to them in the same way that Gloria becomes attached to Robbie, which as we saw, wouldn’t exactly go over well with a less accepting public.”

This got me thinking about “dehumanization.”  I have always associated the term with the removal of humanity from a subject, thereby making it an object.  I was therefore surprised to look up the definition online.

Dehumanization, transitive verb:

- To deprive of human qualities, personality, or spirit. (Source)

Taking this into consideration and thinking about how attachment can be foiled by dehumanization made me realize that we emotionally attach to “human qualities.”  These qualities though, can exist in non-human forms.  The physical body does not determine the humanity of a thing.  Just as we can “dehumanize” a robot, we can “humanize” an object.  I’m thinking, for example, about how children emotionally attach to stuffed animals or dolls.  In many ways, children humanize these object, giving them names and feelings, even if such human qualities are only fabrications of imagination.

Being human is not a prerequisite for being an object of attachment.  Another example is pets.  While historically pets have been treated as animals (used to work the land and help humans), our attitude toward our furry friends (even this term is humanizing) has dramatically shifted.  Now pets have names, beds (if not our own), personalities.  We make up voices for them, discern what their favorite foods are.  Our treatment imbues pets with human qualities, which makes such strong emotional attachments possible.

We control our ability to attach by regulating the “human qualities” which we recognize or impart on non-human things.  Should the enslavement of robots ever come to pass, I do not think we need to “dehumanize” the robots in order to accept slavery.  Rather, we must prevent ourselves from recognizing or imparting any personality, spirit, or human qualities on them in the first place.

At the same time, this seems quite difficult to do, as in Asimov’s stories (and most of the robot texts we’ve examined), robots are built to replace humans in some respect (predominantly labour).  If they do, can we not recognize any “human qualities” in them?  Is that even possible?  Or would it be part of the illusion we would need to maintain in order to support our delusion that enslavement was ethical?

I know we didn’t watch Bicentennial Man in class, but I think it offers quite a different perspective than the short story version and also happens to be one of my favorite movies. This scene in particular as always fascinated me since it touches on a lot of the abstract concepts and emotions we associate with being human. Throughout the scene Andrew is understandably confused, since nothing Porcia is saying really “makes sense.” From making mistakes just for the sake of making them, to criticizing Andrew’s rationality, Porcia essentially tells Andrew to do all those things that we, as humans try to avoid. This got me to thinking about the “exclusivity” factor of being human which came up in Karen’s post. While humans might, in theory, always be trying to move towards the ideal (not making mistakes, being perfectly rational in our decision making) anyone who actually attained the ideal would likely be ostracized from the human race for being so unusual, one of a kind in fact. Despite our lip service to this ideal, most of us really can’t stand the idea of human perfection, since it forces us to admit to the impermanence of our own flaws.

I think this is what Andrew represents for Porcia, a constant reminder of the extent of her “humanity.” In his inability to make “mistakes,” his failure to “follow his heart” as Porcia says, Andrew becomes in a way unlovable, or at unempathetic (not a real word but you get the idea), which in a way has ties to the former. Later in the movie, Andrew essentially breaks up Porcia’s engagement, thereby “making a mistake” and becoming human. Though perhaps unsurprising given the historical fallibility of humanity (going all the way back to Adam and Eve), I still find it interesting that an essential component of being human is not what makes us great but what makes us flawed.

I found this site on the intelligence of birds, namely chickens, after our discussion of chickens in class.  Experts say that chickens can remember the faces of other chickens and they have at least thirty different “vocalizations.”  I never considered that the intelligence level of a chicken had been manipulated in order to relieve consumer guilt and therefore increase sales.  The parallel that Professor Parham drew between this tactic and the tactic of publicizing slaves’ inability to read/write/learn in order to relieve any guilt in subjugating them is fascinating.  A parallel can also be drawn in terms of robot creation and advertisement.  Robots are, in contrast to chickens and slaves, portrayed as exceedingly smart; however, they lack important human emotions.  Without these emotions, such as empathy, it is difficult to feel bad about ordering them around or rewiring them if there is a defect or destroying them if there is no longer use for them.

Much of the film revolves around David’s fervent desire to be reunited with his “mother” after their sudden separation, which I at least imagined happened relatively soon after Monica had him “imprint” on her.  Is it because of this loss of the caregiver that David cannot move past the infant stage (in which all he wants is “Mommy”)?  Or is it because he was designed to love but not evolve?  For that matter, can robots develop emotionally?

I guess this goes a little back to the question of if robots can learn.  In A.I. , we see in the opening scene that “mechas” are built with “pain memory response”, for example the “female” mecha snatches her hand away when Professor Hobby attempts to stab her a second time.

If Davids (the mecha model) were not able to mature emotionally, then wouldn’t this be potentially problematic for the “parents”?  At some point, as emphasized in the film, the parents would age and then die, but would their child always remain the same, needy age?  Unable to care for itself?  If the parents were in their 80s, would they still want to care for their David?  Would they leave their David to someone in their wills?  If not, then they would have to send him back to the factory to dispose of him, affirming David’s ability to be replaced and his robot-ness.

These are all smaller questions, but I wondered if anyone else had thoughts about David’s emotional development.  Anyone?

When David eats too much spinach, Monika scolds the boys, particularly Martin, for being so competitive and for inciting David. Monika’s intervention is very maternal towards them both. At this point in the movie, the audience has gotten a good sense of how attached Monika has gotten to David and how she has begun to regard him truly as a son. However, the mood shifts when David malfunctions and the synthetic skin on his eye slackens revealing the metal underneath. It is an uncanny moment for the parents (not Martin because that was what he was expecting) and even for me as a watcher because I had become engrossed in thinking of David as a real boy. A gap is presented here, the space between the body and the mind – and the information being processed by all through David’s performance of human sensibilities.

Where do these examples lead? Well, Professor Hobby went through much detail to make David appear and even feel as real as possible. However, can simply thinking about the mind, or information, objectively really trump the notion of human flesh and blood in the name of defining what it means to be human. Sure, the robot may be designed to have the same functioning brain, perhaps a more powerful brain, however, can those performances take the place of a beating heart. The heart becomes important to me because despite its lack of cognitive function, it certainly is a part of our biological responses, as humans, to certain things such as love. You can program a robot to exhibit signs of love, trigger sweat in the palms, etc, exhibit shakiness and tremor, at anticipation, but you can’t forget the role the heart plays in these physical reactions. Your heart races when you, first, or for some others, every time, you see someone you love (whether intimately or familiarly).

My point is this, David was programmed to love. Professor Hobby said that himself. He warned Monika that if she imprinted the words that David’s love would be “forever” tied to them. Thus, when he is told by Martin that his mother doesn’t love him because he isn’t real, he goes on a quest to become real to win that affection, one that he is reasons he should receiving. It never occurred to him that she may genuinely love him back until he has to hear her say in the end to be truly content. It never registers to him that her actions all along (even she never said “I love you” out loud to him before) that he was being loved in return. He never stopped to question why he loved her either. So while I understand Hayles, and many other theorists, arguments on the humanity of robots who are made to think, I still think that the body, if not the physical, but the biological (as in the internal responses to stimuli which then in turn reinforce or illicit certain behaviors) is a key element in what it means to be human. There are just some things you cannot replicate. Andrew in Bicentennial Man learns this the hard way.

On a random note…was Wall-e really in love?

All of his thoughts and actions focused exclusively on some aspect of winning Monica’s affections, to the point of staring down a statue for 2000 years in the hopes of being magically transformed into a human. If a human were to exhibit this kind of obsession, their mental health would likely come into question, since humans simply can’t sustain that kind of singular focus for such an incredible duration of time. David’s ability to do so mostly just convinced me that he was programmed extremely well to do one thing and one thing only, in some ways almost less complex than some of the machines we have today. While seeing David suffer and long for Monica’s love was by no means a pleasurable experience, neither was it a wholly compelling one in terms of eliciting my sympathy. Though I’m sure my admittedly cliched expectations going into the film contributed to my feelings of disillusion and indifference toward’s David’s plight, I still find it hard to believe that the movie’s ultimate intention is to present such a distinctly unsympathetic character.

“This robot, as a free robot chooses to wear clothes. This results in his being frequently humiliated by thoughtless humans” (272).

First of all, anyone else having a Dobby the house-elf flashback? Clothes serve to distinguish him from other robots, but are still not effective in allowing him to be (or pass for) human.

Later in the novel the narrator returns to clothing: “Her name was Chee Li-Hsing and her transparent garments (obscuring what she wanted obscured only by their dazzle) made her look plastic wrapped.” (282)

And then:

“Congresswoman Li-Hsing was considerably older than she had been when Andrew had first met her. Her transparent garments were long gone. Her hair was now close-cropped and her coverings were tubular. Yet still Andrew clung, as closely as he could within the limits of reasonable taste, to the style of clothing that had prevailed when he had first adopted clothing over a century before.” (286)

Are the bizarre descriptions intended as chronological signifiers – intended to show the passing of time and the intended futuristic quality of the story – or do they reveal something about Andrew? Perhaps a lack of creativity, or maybe even nostalgia for when he was ‘young’?

In class a couple of weeks ago, Professor Parham asked how important our body was to us – how much it registered in our day to day. Is this a case an individual who simply doesn’t bother with his body? Or is it suggesting that clothes are simply a passing mechanism that he regards peripherally. Could his disregard then be a reflection of his attitude in general towards the human body – necessary towards his aims, but irrelevant to what he might argue makes him deserve humanity: not his organic body but his mind, which he had all along.

In thinking about this, I tried a very logical approach: Passing can be defined as a method of gaining rights that you have been legally denied of because of your physical being/identity. Therefore, by passing for something/someone that does not have access to inalienable rights, the passing subject gives up their rights. This is a reverse of gaining rights. Legally, you lose rights and undergo a degradation – to state bluntly. Hence, reverse passing might be appropriate.

Even though there are such negative implications on the term, the legal construction imposed on language and concepts (historically) defines the way we articulate various concepts. In essence, our thinking of passing and legal constructions that prompted passing, reverse passing is the “correct” term to use.

http://www.hulu.com/watch/197318/the-brandon-teena-story

“How on earth has this come up?” you might ask.  Well, in my habitual perusal of YouTube, I came across a series of videos made for Google’s “Demo Slam.”  (For those of you who are unfamiliar, Demo Slam suggests that people make and submit their own videos in which they showcase their use of Google technology).  One of them was called “Chubby Bunny.”

Obviously, in the film, the brothers use Google’s “Search by Voice” instead of a person as the “judge” of the game.  After watching AI and reading Hayles and Asimov, I consistently have contemplated the future.  As Asimov and AI paint it, there is a level of human dependence on robots to perform tasks ordinarily held by humans.  For example, the nanny robot in AI was meant to replace human nannies.  I have also thought about how humans could come to this point of letting a robot care for their child, but then I realized that we already are becoming dependent on technology to perform formerly human tasks.

In factories.  At tollbooths.  They can replace human workers.

House robots can vacuum your carpet, wash your floor, clean your pool, sweep your shop, and even clean your gutters.

On the human interaction side, we are developing them to assist the elderly.

And now, they are infiltrating children’s games too.

In some ways, it’s most unsurprising.  Children now are even more tech-savvy and “plugged-in” than we were at their age.  I remember learning to type in 3rd grade, but it seems like typing is increasingly a skill that is acquired before then (there is now a toy category called “Learning Laptops“).  To these kids, using Google technology and a smartphone as the “judge” in their game is an improvement upon the old.  There will be no scuffles over rulings, as the “judge” in no way can be biased.  I was surprised, even impressed, at the subtlety of the voice recognition software, as it recognized “Chubby Bunny” when the brother in the orange shirt stuffs four marshmallows into his mouth and barely ekes it out.

The “Slam” made me smile, but it was in more of a nostalgic way than anything.  I recognized the game, but the game was different.  I’m sure that most children still play “Chubby Bunny” without technological help, but this video encourages people to try playing it with “Search in Voice.”

Heck, even I’m tempted.  Luckily, I have not one, but two bags of marshmallows in my room at this time.  Plenty to try both ways.

I had a similar experience at Bradley airport. I have dual citizenship and there’s always an awkward mid-travel passport swap that has to happen between destinations. On the way back home for the first time the man at the check in counter asked to see my visa – I showed him my other passport. While we had been having a perfectly friendly exchange until then, when he saw this his demeanour instantly changed.“Oh, I see, wearing two hats at once, are we?”

I was surprised by his sudden hostility. He went on to ask me a lot of details, where I had been visiting in the US, why, for how long.

“And what is your U.S. address”

“… huh?”

“Your address, in the U.S”

“I, uh, don’t have one?”

“Ooooh. Oh no. You know that’s illegal, right?”

Never before or since then have I ever been asked for an address at the check-in counter. I could feel my face getting red, my heart beating faster. Is this guy seriously going to make me miss my flight?

“I’ll do you a favor this time and let it slide. But now you know for next time”

I still resent the fear and embarrassment I felt in that moment. I weakly mumbled something about the embassy. I was too bewildered to feel indignant. Maybe I had done something illegal?

I’ve given it some thought and I’m still not entirely sure why the man reacted the way he did. I suspect, however, that part of it may have come from my unintentional deception: I look Hispanic. He was Hispanic. We had had a pleasant interaction until the moment he saw my Mozambican passport. Clearly not what he was expecting.

I’ve been traveling between countries fairly regularly my whole life without issue. I knew I wasn’t doing anything wrong, and yet in that moment he held power over me such that I was filled with doubt. Anyway, I got on my plane (albeit after being pulled aside for extra patting down), and I still don’t have an American address. And thank god self check-in counters are now ubiquitous.

Puritans and small children may want to avert their eyes

I thought this brought up an interesting discussion about how people decide what exactly is “invasive” and how they decide when their “personal space” has been violated. While the full body scanners certainly are more thorough (I’m going to try and avoid using “invasive” simply because this subjective term seems to be at the heart of the debate right now), you don’t feel anything when you go through them, the images are essentially featureless, and those images can’t even be stored by the TSA. The scanners are thus little more than advanced metal detectors, but the idea of being “X-rayed” still seems to frighten and upset a significant amount of people. This wouldn’t be all that surprising if said people didn’t then opt-out for the much more “hands-on” method of a full body pat-down. In this scenario, a TSA officer has to do a sweep of the whole body, with every possible nook and crevice accounted for; that brief “pat-down” you get before entering a TAP this is not.

Now while I’m sure body scanner protesters don’t see this procedure as necessarily less “invasive” than the machines, at the very least find the scanners to be the greater offense. I think this might have to do with how we perceive surveillance and being surveyed, since there is something undeniably unsettling about the government being able to “undress” you in a sense. Perhaps what people find so upsetting is not necessarily being subjected to a more personal security measure, but that the measure is conducted by a machine that does so soundlessly and without touching you. This disconnect between the subject and the security strikes a much more “sci-fi, Big Brother” chord than a traditional pat-down ever could, inciting those persistent fears that the government somehow invades every aspect of our life. While the pat-downs elicit a more visceral sensation of discomfort, the abstract fear of an omniscient machine would appear to trump that in many peoples eyes.

As you might have been able to tell I’m slightly skeptical about all the outrage and protest against the body scanners, but I’m curious to know if anyone actually felt the sensations I described above. Or perhaps you simply find the scanners an unreasonable invasion of privacy that doesn’t outweigh the security benefits. In any case share your thoughts please!