If you can't tell, does it matter?

Our brains, as incredibly complex as they are, are electrical circuits. And some say that if we can replicate the circuits that comprise our thoughts then we can replicate what makes us human. It is naïve to say we will never be able to beat the Turing Test, or that we won’t achieve perfect human-like aesthetics. It’s only a matter of time. But when that time comes, what happens? Will we be able to resist making them perfect? If they are perfect will we value less the imperfections that make us human?

Even if we created a robot that was conscious, that was intelligent, that looked and talked and acted like us, I would say there’s still something missing. There’s a part of me that refuses to believe that everything we are – our choices, our emotions, our fear and our love – can be reduced to a set of algorithms. In Westworld, a show about a technologically advanced amusement park populated by remarkable human-like androids, a man asks a woman if she is real. She replies, “If you can’t tell, does it matter?”

I want to say it does.

​ UW DXARTS Mechatronic Art I 2017.