Midterm Question #5 - Artificial Intelligence and Robotics

In the film, Ex Machina, the robot the movie is centered around takes the shape of a beautiful woman, Ava. She is smart, as you would expect a robot to be, but she also enjoys others things, such as art and nature. I would say that Ava is artificial intelligence, simply because she has free will to do what she pleases. This allows her to find some things good and others bad, that would typically be cracked up to "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder." She can adapt and learn, but also can manipulate easily to get what she wants. This is completely different from Ash in the film, Be Right Back. In this story, the robot in question, Ash 2.0, as we have dubbed him, seems to lack any free will at all. His only will is to satisfy his owner, which is Ash's widowed wife. Martha enjoys him around at first, but eventually finds that it is not Ash at all in the robot, only his best self, the one he puts online. This is a commentary, I believe, on how our society feels about what should be online and what should not. We as a generation fail to put any detrimental information online; nothing about our failures or shortcomings can be seen. So, Ash 2.0 is made up of the internet version of Ash, which has no shortcomings.  He is a pushover, doing the will of Martha. Do I think that we have a moral obligation to artificial intelligence, such as Ash 2.0 or Ava? I think it depends. They were made from nuts and bolts, not from their mother and father. They are not living, they were only programmed to live. I see a big difference in the two, because one has a soul and the other simply does not. I think the moral obligation we have to robots, like Ash 2.0, must stem from respect we have for the makers, because of the hard work it went into building and designing the machine. In my opinion, Martha should have let Ash 2.0 fall off the cliff, but I understand why she did not. I would probably do the same if put in that position. It is hard to let go of someone. Ash 2.0 was no Ash. All the things that made him appear like Ash were made up of things outside his body, not the machine. All those things live on in  emails, videos, texts and the like. The things that made up the real Ash are his soul and his flaws and his free will to do what he wished. These things are not preserved in his texts and emails. This is what makes him human. As for Ava, I think that she deserved some moral obligations. She had free will to determine what was bad and good in her own eyes. Though she did not have a soul, she has free will. This makes her have some flaws and things of the like. She deserves some type of moral obligation. I guess what I am saying is that if the artificial intelligence has free will to do whatever they please, they deserve our moral obligation.