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[ElectricZ]

Saphra Deden wrote...

ElectricZ wrote...

It doesn't matter how the geth came to be, or why they were built. It's what they are now that matters.

*Now being 2185, of course.

What they are is computer programs.

And we're carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and hydrogen, just like a lowly ameoba but arranged in a different way. Maybe the reapers are right and we organics don't have the right back since that's all we are. A bunch of chemicals that react well together according to a genetic code.

I think we do have the right to fight against our extinction, though. And I think the geth do, too...

Modifié par ElectricZ, 05 juillet 2011 - 11:34 .

[ElectricZ]

Saphra Deden wrote...

ElectricZ wrote...

And we're carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and hydrogen, just like a lowly ameoba but arranged in a different way.

The ingredients are important.

Not really, since those are the most common elements in the universe. By some estimations, sentient organic life in the galaxy should be common. And, depending on your personal beliefs, we are the result of random chance and natural selection over billions of years. That same random chance is producing life everywhere.  In the ME universe, that seems to be the model. Life keeps springing up everywhere, getting wiped out every 50,000 years by the reapers on a regular timetable, and it keeps on coming back.

We're not special at all. We're just next in line.

Modifié par ElectricZ, 05 juillet 2011 - 11:52 .

[DragonRacer]

ElectricZ wrote...

Geth certainly don't understand death the way organics do -- except for Legion, they are in constant contact with their network, and if a runtime is destroyed, it can be replaced with a backup. They don't have enough experience with organics to have any empathy, or to recognize any kind of loss if one of us is killed.

I think Legion's experiences, once uploaded back to the collective, would change that. It certainly has feelings about Shepard (wearing the N7 armor) but lacks the ability to explain why. It also has spent a long time, according to the Shadow Broker file, interacting with organics over networks through games, during which time it:

got suspended repeatedly for cheating, which it successfully got overturned,
got suspended for taunting n00bz, for which it accepted punishment,
got an achievement for freeing slaves with no casualties,
bought, but did not play a game depicting the defense of Eden Prime from the heretic geth, thereby making a donation to the rebuilding of a human colony razed by his own kind,
and spent 75 hours playing (and failing miserably) an interactive inter-species relationship simulator.

So I think Legion, and possibly the geth as a whole, want to have peaceful coexistance with organics and are more than a collection of bits and bytes. What's more, of all the factions in the galaxy, they seem to be the only ones who really desire peace, their violent splinter group of heretics nonwithstanding. For my money, they're people, and worth saving in ME3.

You summed up very succintly what I would have said. Between Legion re-playing that sound file of a geth platform asking if it/they had a soul... to the moments bolded above where it seems Legion is developing some type of emotion or feeling, though he/it cannot properly understand it or explain it... really has made me scratch my head and re-think the geth as a whole. Acquiring Legion really was a shock of an experience, considering I had been fairly close to supporting the quarians in their bid for reclaiming their homeworld/re-igniting war with the geth while doing Tali's loyalty mission... turning Legion on and getting to know the actual geth -- not just their heretics I'd been shooting down all game -- was just very surreal. It honestly made me feel like a total jerk for having almost encouraged the quarians to go to war (I ultimately remained neutral on the issue throughout Tali's trial... but moreso because of my concern for the quarians biting off more than they could chew, not because of any feelings or emotional attachment to the geth at the time).

Then again, I will admit some bias towards having a soft spot for machines/robots attempting peaceful interaction with humans. Isaac Asimov corrupted my mind early in childhood (long before Data or any of the other well-loved robotics that followed in science fiction) and, as much as I've seen "I, Robot" quoted here and there during geth conversations on these boards, I think anyone intrigued by the subject ought to also read the short story (or watch the movie rendition... very well done) "The Bicentennial Man" -- for just how more or less a robot can be considered a person, for when does a collection of programs and logistics develop identity enough to be considered, dare I say, ensouled?

Leaving a good "I, Robot" quote to close with:



Dr. Alfred Lanning: There have always been ghosts in the machine. Random segments of code, that have grouped together to form unexpected protocols. Unanticipated, these free radicals engender questions of free will, creativity, and even the nature of what we might call the soul. Why is it that when some robots are left in darkness, they will seek out the light? Why is it that when robots are stored in an empty space, they will group together, rather than stand alone? How do we explain this behavior? Random segments of code? Or is it something more? When does a perceptual schematic become consciousness? When does a difference engine become the search for truth? When does a personality simulation become the bitter mote... of a soul?

[Rulid]

No doubt what the writers set out to do was suggest that Geth were an independent intelligent entity, or a sentient being. It was probably presented as a novel way in which seemingly rudimentary systems could link to become exponentially more complex. This is one step advanced from the traditional Robots of fiction, HAL R2D2 etc.

Unfortunately in a real sense of creating artificial intelligence, networking simply does not fuel enough compound complexity to create such a supposed "true" artificial intelligence.
Even the simple function of pattern recognition, movement and positioning, and moreso, judgement that are routinely performed in naturally evolved beings is complex enough. For the Quarians to have developed "true" sentient beings simply by networking sufficiently intelligent components to produce enough complexity in a system is ludicrous in terms of AI. At best such random linkage of components could barely produce even the necessary complexity of a bacterium, let alone "Hive intelligence" as demonstrated by Geth and Legion.

While it was an amusing approach on how to achieve the "next level of artificial intelligence" I don't see it plausible enough to differentiate the debate of "Are Geth Sentient?" with the typical "Is Pinoccio a Boy?". Yeah, sure Geth are sentient if they are granted such strides in evolution (read: magically) to become intelligent. However this is noto any different than debating whether Asimov's robots have a soul.

[Rulid]

The problem of the debate presents the question of whether artificially created beings can be considered sentient.

The problem with this line of reasoning is that we are comparing modern day utensils to fictional sentient beings.

To Clarify, the level of sentience and sophistication presented in ANY fictional "robot" is far beyond present day capabilities to reproduce, that labelling Legion with a modern day construction line robot is wrong.
The dichotomy of modern day machines and fictional futuristic machines stem from the fact that writers simply explained away the process of developing such complex intellligence as presented in fiction. In such a way, the tale of "Quarians developing Geth" is no different from "Tin man fueled by Magic". Granted that such a process has "somehow" been developed, Geth should be considered as sentient.
Unfortunately the majority of modern AI science fiction does not deal in the complexities of what can be considered "true sentience".

Succinctly, If my TV had sufficent intelligence to even act like cockroach, I will consider my TV to be a sentient life form, whether or not it was made by Samsung or Sony. However, how my TV gained such great leaps of intelligence would still be beyond comprehension.

Probably the only form of plausible AI would be the Reapers. And if, after millions of years they did evolve to such, they would merely be considered on par with any conventional animal, and not "beyond your comprehension".

[S.A.K]

Interesting opinions. Thanks everyone!

[Kadzin]

AngelicMachinery wrote...

Gavinthelocust wrote...

TexasToast712 wrote...

 Machines. No matter how you try to pretty it up they are still manufactured creations of wires and metal.

You're a rudimentary creature of blood and flesh.

I  Sovereign.

Your words are as empty as your future. I am the vanguard of your destruction. This exchange is over.

[AngelicMachinery]

Saphra Deden wrote...

ElectricZ wrote...

Not really, since those are the most common elements in the universe.

No, they do matter because they have a huge effect on how the final product is put together. Organic experience is what it is because of how organic organisms are put together. It is radically different from the kind of "experience" a synthetic "organism" would have.

The fact of hte matter is, geth are pure software. Meaning they are purely computer programs. You could write a geth down on papre and manually run its program and it would "live" despite being nothing more than you solving math equations. Where would the brain be, the "mind" I mean? The consciousness?

It would take a VERY LONG time and not be practical, but it would work.

Try and really get your ahead around that idea.

You don't read/watch/play a lot of sci-fi do you?  Or is this a quarian thing?

[Ryzaki]

I consider the Geth "people".

Plus Legion's adorable.

[Homebound]

i consider them to be some sort of hive-like race of machines.

[V-rex]

"I think therefore I am."

The Geth think, the Geth are aware of themselves and are conscious. They have even been seen to do seemingly random actions that would suggest emotion, as well as develop to capacity to form religion and try to create their own future.

Hence, I no longer view the Geth as simple machines. It's how they started, but they are a lot more then that now.

[upsettingshorts]

Oh, I can repost this!
This too.

Link goes to old conversation(s) on the same subject.

Upsettingshorts wrote...

"Now sooner or later this man, or others like him, will succeed in replicating Commander Data. The decision you reach here today will determine how we regard this creation of our genius. It will reveal the kind of people we are, what he is destined to be, it will reach far beyond this courtroom and this one android. It could significantly redefine the boundaries of liberty and freedom; expanding them for some, savagely curtailing them for others.  Are you prepared to condemn him and all that come after him, to servitude and slavery? Your honor, Starfleet was founded toseek out new life: and there it sits!"
- Captain Picard

I'd say the Quarians decision to try to destroy the Geth once they became sentient revealed the kind of people they are;  intellectual cowards who had the audacity to create life and the arrogance to attempt to destroy it when they believed it threatened them.  They remain in denial not only about what the Geth are, but their ultimate responsibility for their fate. 

Modifié par Upsettingshorts, 06 juillet 2011 - 06:55 .

[Kadzin]

Upsettingshorts wrote...

Oh, I can repost this!
This too.

Link goes to old conversation(s) on the same subject.

Upsettingshorts wrote...

"Now sooner or later this man, or others like him, will succeed in replicating Commander Data. The decision you reach here today will determine how we regard this creation of our genius. It will reveal the kind of people we are, what he is destined to be, it will reach far beyond this courtroom and this one android. It could significantly redefine the boundaries of liberty and freedom; expanding them for some, savagely curtailing them for others.  Are you prepared to condemn him and all that come after him, to servitude and slavery? Your honor, Starfleet was founded toseek out new life: and there it sits!"
- Captain Picard

I'd say the Quarians decision to try to destroy the Geth once they became sentient revealed the kind of people they are;  intellectual cowards who had the audacity to create life and the arrogance to attempt to destroy it when they believed it threatened them.  They remain in denial not only about what the Geth are, but their ultimate responsibility for their fate. 

Considering that AI research and development was restricted and as far as I remember punishable, the quarrians paniced and tried to cover up their f**kup, of course we know that it didn't go well, and the truth was discovered. However I agree, the mahority of quarians want to "reclaim their homeland" by warring with the geth. Personally I think they should change their mind and try to establish some sort of communication with their creations. As much as I dislike admiral Zaal'Koris vas Qwib Qwib, I think he, of all quarrians, has the right idea about what the quarrian people should do.

[CroGamer002]

Geth are people too!

[MyOpinionSucks]

It's life, Jim, but not as we know it.

[Paula Deen]

Geth give us pronoun trouble, sure, but every AI is the equivalent of a person.

Legion, for instance, has goals, desires, likes and dislikes. "He" even made the irrational action of using Shepard's old N7 armor for repairs.

I refer to Legion as "he" because he's effectively an individual. Gender obviously isn't existent for Geth, but calling him "it" is dehumanizing and unfriendly.

And that's not even bringing up EDI, who, by the end of ME2, displays so many characteristics of "people" that I view her no differently from Mordin or Jack.

[CroGamer002]

^That's why Geth just sl...

I think I should stop there.